Free Enterprise
by Le'letha
Summary: A Ferengi DaiMon steals and auctions off the famous Enterprise to a rising star of the Romulan Empire. The crew appoints themselves Damage Control, but there are some interested third parties out there…
1. Double or Nothing

_**Free Enterprise**_

_**Le'letha**_

**Summary:** A Ferengi DaiMon steals and auctions off the famous Enterprise to a rising star of the Romulan Empire. The crew appoints themselves Damage Control, but there are some interested third parties out there…

**Disclaimer: **I don't own the Trekiverse; I just like to play in it. I like it better than my world.

**ON WITH THE SHOW!**

**Chapter One: Double or Nothing**

_In which the superiority of money over weapons is debated at gunpoint, so to speak._

Idly, Varka wondered how much longer she would have to sit like this in the dark. It wasn't that she minded being in the dark, much the contrary, or even sitting very still for what seemed to be bordering on eternity, for, like the samurai of ancient Earth, she could sit for hours without moving a muscle under voluntary control if it was for a good cause.

That was the only thing keeping her motionless in the dark recesses of an alcove roughly chiseled out of semi-porous rock in the center of an asteroid, whose artificial atmosphere had been set at a truly abysmal template. It would be logical to assume that the controls had been set by the owner of this space rock, but the assumption, however logical, would be false, for Varka happened to know that the being who nominally held the lease to the asteroid was, in fact, a computer construct, set up at the behest of the Orion Syndicate, who in turn leased it out to smugglers of a higher band than the common whisky and self-sealing stem bolt black marketers.

A gust of sulfur- and brimstone-scented air blew its way toward her nostrils, tempting her to sneeze explosively and scrub every last trace of the stench from her nose onto her wrist-long diamond checked grey sleeve. Warned by the reaction of others near her, however, she was prepared for the breath of bad air, and envisioned it washing around her, enabling her to ignore it.

Had there not been a more-than-substantial goal in sight at the end of this ordeal, Varka might well have swept to her feet and stormed out imperiously, half-cloak gusting behind her, leaving the shoddy asteroid, its dubious (if temporary) inhabitants, and its truly abominable chairs behind her for good and for all. Even the gravity was wrong, carefully tuned to create the illusion, when combined with the curved walls, of being on the edge of falling. In an effort to calm herself of worries for the upcoming event, counteract the rigged gravity, and to present the distorted image of being totally in control, she had ejected a nervous representative, so heavily bandaged and wearing such an assortment of different clothes that even a guess at its gender was impossible, and had seated herself in an alcove where she could see all, hear much, and thankfully stay downwind of most of the air-filtration systems.

On the downside, she was already stiff beyond belief, lower calves throbbing in sympathy with one another, and the dark cloak she had cast over her entire body, wrapping her like a shroud, was beginning to stifle her.

Her orders had specified, albeit indirectly, total concealment of her identity and race with the darkest cloak possible (read: black) augmented with a holographic projector that, regrettably, had only a limited range. The device, which hung from a thick belt of grey so dark it could almost be called black, was about the size of her hand, and emitted a harmless radiation that was equivalent to visual static. Observers could detect her presence and overall height, perhaps making a guess at her gender, but details such as her age, race, and physical features were nothing but a meaningless and frustrating blur.

Finally, she moved infinitesimally; her eyebrows snapped towards her finely hooked nose at the sight of Ransk. How she hated the man, if 'man' was the word she wanted to use for a slimy, fawning toad like the DaiMon. Even now, with the key to the entire gathering almost literally in the palm of his hand, he was dashing around sucking up to the heavily disguised representatives of various races assembled within the hollowed-out asteroid, and, though it seemed unbelievable, distributing small objects, perhaps samples of some trinket or another. Was there no end to the man's gall? Although those he visited seemed more nervous after he left than before he'd appeared in their vicinity, she noted that they still clung to the PADD-sized devices that had been imposed on them.

Despite his noxious bearing and typical Ferengi opportunism, he had, however, proved an unusually stubborn DaiMon. Her superiors had thought it the best of luck when one of their spies in the Ferengi fleet reported the theft to them. Varka pitied the poor soul who had been assigned that deeply undercover, for the operatives, no doubt on loan from the Tal Shiar, who were as anxious to be one step ahead as the rest of the Romulan Empire, often were obliged to be surgically altered to resemble the race of their cover identity. Although a spasm of distaste went through her spare form at the very thought, she inwardly saluted such dedication.

A flurry of activity, orders snapped out eagerly, and a private delegation was on its way to Ferenginar to acquire Ransk's prize by any means necessary. Knowing the Ferengi as the Alpha and Beta Quadrants did, it wasn't difficult to infer the easiest way for it to change hands; it was well known that a Ferengi would sell not only his soul, but the souls of his brother, his neighbors, and his favorite pet for the right price. So the delegation went with _carte blanche_.

The second thing that most of the people of the Alpha Quadrant knew was that Ferengi could never turn down a deal, especially if they got to dictate it. And the third was that they talked very, very fast. The delegation was good, but not quite good enough, and before long, Ransk had arranged a compromise. Considering where he was dictating from, they had had little choice.

Thus, the secret black-market meeting arranged in an out-of-the-way asteroid. Thus, the set-up auction that Ransk had promised that they would win. But there had to be an auction of some type, Ransk had insisted. Otherwise, when they started to use his hard-won prize, every other culture would go up in flames insisting that there was now a military alliance between the two races. In the event of an auction, they would still get their prize, he would still get a lot of money, and the aforementioned cultures would nevertheless go up in flames, but it wouldn't officially reflect on their respective governments.

Not that Varka would have passed up this golden opportunity for glory, but she did resent, just a little, the logic that had placed her, specifically, in charge of this operation.

_Talented enough to manage it. Inexperienced enough to be expendable._

What a set of references.

Against her right hip, her communicator buzzed once, programmed to vibrate without a sound. Varka's eyes didn't even flicker toward it once.

Impatiently, it buzzed again, and this time, one of Varka's eyebrows reached for her hairline, almost finding it in her tightly clipped bangs. Abandoning her statue impression, she drew her cloak of darkest red further about her, using the cover it and the natural darkness of the alcove provided to reach across and pull it from its holster with her better hand as well as indulging in a stretch for her long legs.

"Status report," she said quietly into the communicator, placing the first finger of her hand on the touchpad that would allow the channel to be opened on both ends of the connection.

Varka almost cracked a secret smile at the frustration in her temperamental right hand's voice, obvious only to those who knew her well and an ironic term considering the spatial orientation of the commander. Doubtless, the subcommander was pacing their bridge, growling under her breath at innocuous consoles and twirling her finely balanced and forged belt knife, a souvenir of a battle won as a young woman, at crewmen who happened to be in her line of sight.

"Commander," the transmission began, "we are cloaked. Shields are raised, sensors are at full power. We have swept System J-11V using the search pattern you ordered. There is no sign of the objective within the system."

"Traces of cloaking devices in use?"

"Aye, sir, twenty-seven of them, not including our own."

Varka performed a quick mental tally of the room's occupants, cross-referencing what she could infer from the other parties' entry times, manners, and subsequent interactions with other concealed auction attendees.

"That's one extra, at least," she said at last. "Possibly as many as five anomalies." She paused for a second, and then hailed, "Sub-commander."

"Awaiting orders, Commander." The excessive formality, Varka mused, was likely to get to Liarka Ki'riin soon, and resolved to end the conversation quickly, before her second-in-command lost her temper.

"Analyze the type of cloaking devices used." Difficult, if not impossible. "Then extrapolate which the Ferengi would be most likely to use, and set the sensors to penetrate those cloaks. Find Ransk's mother ship, and if possible, our objective."

She could almost see the look on Ki'riin's face as she asked the impossible of her. She would roll her eyes, run her fingers over whatever was at hand, and—

"At once, Commander."

—agree.

With the faintest of smiles, Varka didn't even attempt to soothe her subcommander's annoyance. "By the time you get results, this farce of an auction will soon be underway. I'll contact you if there are further developments. Sa'tkir out." She closed the channel brusquely and returned the little device to her hip pocket, repositioning herself for another half-hour, at least, of waiting.

It could have been a relatively peaceful half-hour, but such was not to be, for Ransk's circuit of the room led him inevitably to her alcove.

"Greetings, honored guest," the Ferengi boomed in his unusually deep voice. "I trust you are comfortable?"

"You show touching concern, DaiMon," she responded coldly, staying motionless. There was no need for her to disguise her voice—better that he know who he was dealing with.

The gesture did the trick. Ransk straightened up almost immediately, hands closing from their mien of false welcome to an almost official pair of fists at his sides. She distinctly saw him gulp. Even mostly hidden, she had that effect, and Varka Sa'tkir loved it.

"Commander," he said in an undertone. "I beg your pardon."

"Denied. You may have it once this farce is complete."

Ransk began to protest automatically at the degradation of his grand scheme, but thought better of it before a single syllable had left his mouth. "Commander, there is something important that you need to know."

Although he couldn't see it through the holographic shield, she narrowed her eyes, tempted by the idea of blasting him with her gaze alone, which she couldn't do. Nevertheless, he became, if possible, even more uncomfortable. "Of course, there's no doubt that yours will be the winning bid, madam, but, well, as it stands…"

She couldn't resist indulging in a bit of drama, and popped one knuckle forcefully. He jumped.

"Yes, well, the Ullians are offering, hmm, quite a _substantial_ price, and it wouldn't look right, would it, if someone who bid lower ended up winning…"

She saw his point, and in the mutual interests of getting out of the horrid chair and being rid of the little weasel, no offense meant to weasels, said curtly, "That will not occur. Now begin the auction."

He chose to interpret that as agreement to pay him more. Let him do so. Hovering uncertainly, knowing he'd been unceremoniously dismissed, he extracted two objects from one of his voluminous pockets. "Your tools, my lady," he presented them to her.

Giving the items, a PADD and a softly glowing tag, a skeptical look, Varka did not extend her hands to accept either one. "Explain."

"Now this," Ransk obeyed, automatically falling into salesman mode, "appears to be a common PADD, when in fact it is programmed with orders to keep records of every transmission made through it, encrypted with the finest algorithms that the Selerines have to offer, on any market. It also has a record on it of this." He waved the tag in front of her eyes, and she didn't pay him the courtesy of pulling away. "Practically jewelry, and yet it serves an essential purpose. This, Madame Commander, is a duplicate-proof isotope of any one of several undisclosed elements. There is not one to match it in this pouch." He patted his pocket smugly. "Thus, simply but effectively fraud-proof."

Varka Sa'tkir highly doubted the legitimacy of anything a Ferengi dubbed 'fraud-proof', but she accepted the two objects regardless, seeing no other choice and hoping that the receipt of such would encourage the DaiMon to proceed with his auction.

Indeed, with a final secretive gesture, Ransk scurried off with a toothsome smile, to the profound relief of both.

Settling back into her uncomfortable chair, Varka activated the PADD she'd just been presented with and did a little snooping around the edges of its code while recorded announcements in unidentifiable voices and languages ranging from Ferengi to Federation Standard to Andorian began urging prospective buyers to find a seat and get comfortable. It showed no amusement at such a blatantly sarcastic statement. Shutting out the cacophony and ignoring anyone who should chance to peek into the alcove while looking for an isolated seat, she was caught between disappointment and appreciation that the code did seem, for the moment, hack-proof. She also noticed that apart from reception and transmission, with a side-job of recording, the PADD seemed to have been all but gutted of function, rendered down to the bare bones of its purpose.

It appeared, too, that Ransk did not intend to follow in the traditional method of auctioneers, for there was no one on the stand at the relative center of the room and no one approaching it. Varka applauded his intuition even as she regretted the wasted opportunity. Standing such would be an open invitation for a spurned bidder to set something fatal on a direct course for him. Instead, Ransk intended to run the bidding directly and totally by computer, for as she watched, green letters sprung up on her PADD.

Beginning at 50 GPL. First offer?

Raising one eyebrow, Varka did nothing, content to simply let the drama play out without her until she could see what was in the wind.

Offers came first hesitantly, then thick and fast, starting with such measly offers as 100 GPL but escalating quickly to 10000 GPL. Already several people seemed to have dropped out of the running. Irked at the fact that she could not see and memorize their faces, Varka hypothesized that they were merely spies for their various organizations, sent not in hope of winning the grand prize but instead finding out who would be in possession in order to avoid them like the plague in the future.

Impassively, Varka kept one eye on the PADD and the other on the people. Although none were identifiable, she was able to discern by relatively universal body language and overt gestures the play of things for those less fortunate. Out-bid parties accepted their losses steadfastly, protested to deaf ears, or attempted to sneak back in. In one case, which made for a few minutes entertaining watching, a bankrupted bidder decided that the man or woman in the space next to him had sabotaged his budget, and, using the PADD as a weapon, attacked not only the one entering the bids, but the entire entourage, and it took several heavyweight Orion bouncers, no doubt on loan from the Syndicate, several minutes to subdue him, dragging the suddenly unconscious man from the room. Where he ended up, no one cared to enquire.

As she watched, her communicator buzzed once, then twice in quick succession, followed by a final extended vibration to complete the agreed-upon code, which Varka had not expected to receive for a long time, if ever. Although she did not look towards it, a distinctly satisfied expression began to spread across her face, and she was once again reminded that she did not give enough credit to her second-in-command.

With the small fry eliminated, the war escalated. As the price skyrocketed, more and more people were forced to retire. Now, motionless save their eyes, they clung to their screens and watched raptly as the greater powers jockeyed for dominance. At one point, a long pause seemed to declare the end of the bidding. Complete silence reigned as everyone waited for further developments.

It was into this environment that Varka made her move. Required to submit no identification beyond the PADD's regulation signature, which could not be traced back to her identity or allegiance, she topped the current high bid by ten kilobars of gold-pressed latinum.

4,270,000 GPL

The first noise in a long while, a tense outpouring of breath from all corners blew some of the stench from the room.

A few seconds later, another bidder displaced her bid by twenty thousand.

Varka had the entire budget of the Defense Division of the Romulan Empire behind her, and she supposed that the Praetor could always try to tap the Tal Shiar for extra credit if need be. Actually, she welcomed the idea of DaiMon Ransk going begging to the Tal Shiar for his missing money. He'd be lucky if the feared sub-branch left him his ears.

So with no little confidence, she upped the ante.

5,000,000 GPL

One gasp from many throats, and Varka paid close attention to hands where they were visible, looking for her competitor, to no avail. He, or maybe she, called and raised, pushing the stakes to five million, twenty thousand.

The Commander was becoming more impressed. Was he bluffing, or was she dealing with another quadrant superpower? The Cardassians, she knew, would love to get their hands on it, regardless the price. And there were other powers that had been lying low for the past eighty years; one never knew where a Gorn or Tholian ship would turn up to muddy the waters.

This went back and forth for a few more minutes, the two competitors edging up the price by bits and starts, probing for each other's limit. Despite the slow pace, no other bidder broke in.

Now sure she was dealing with only one other competitor, Varka allowed herself a secret, private smile. She looked forward to the day when she arrived back at Romulus to hand over her prize to the Praetor himself.

Into the midst of her quickly realizing fantasy broke a truly colossal offer.

6,000,000 GPL. This last was suffixed by an extra dot, as if placing an end to the bidding by its declaration alone.

She sighed and shook her head, allowing the tension to build before entering her counteroffer. The budget was not going to be happy with Commander Varka Sa'tkir.

As the first 'going' popped up on the little screen, Varka submitted her bid. 6,500,000! It was a colossal sum.

Not a breath could be heard. Not one person so much as moved, although in her fertile imagination, Varka could hear Ransk convulsing with joy.

Going.

Going.

Go—

Just as Varka was beginning the congratulations in the privacy of her own mind, in bright green, an unbelievable message appeared on the PADD screen.

10,000,000 GPL!

**WHAT?** She didn't have that kind of authorization! Who in the Empress' name had that sort of money?

Before she could so much as react, her screen first went blank, and then began to spew a prodigious amount of Ferengi legalese. Her vision white with fury, Varka ignored it all, trying to figure out first, what went wrong, second, who had that much credit, and third, what the Praetor would do to her when he found out. She'd be lucky if she was exiled to Remus.

Without another word, she rose, dropping the PADD, still scrolling legalese, and tracker, now dark, on the floor. Pulling her communicator out, she spoke only two words. "Sa'tkir. Energize."

Thank the gods of her ancestors for Plan B. She was going to enjoy it even more than winning honorably.

Varka Sa'tkir was not above cheating to get what she wanted.

**

* * *

**

She swept onto her own bridge carrying a thundercloud over her head, if the reactions of her crew were anything to go by. Despite their discipline, all and sundry seemed to edge away from her as she made her way through the ship. All heads turned to her as the turbolift disgorged her, and the bridge crew saluted her briskly before they quickly returned their attention to their panels lest they be accused of being unnecessarily distracted.

Alone among the centurions was her second-in-command, currently seated in the central command chair of the little scout ship. Liarka Ki'riin greeted her only with a nod, and waited until Varka stood directly in front of her before surrendering the command chair to her superior officer. Petite, pale of skin and with reddish-tinted hair, insubordinate, and arrogant, the subcommander was a walking invitation to a fight. She barely dodged the requisite dark cloak as it was flung across the seat, leaving Varka in her simple uniform. With the chair now between her and her irate commander, Liarka regained her normal sassy mien.

"Are we off to get the slimy bastard now?" She didn't even need to ask how the farce of an auction had gone. If Plan A had been executed, Varka would not now be here, and she would be in a far better mood.

"With the greatest of eagerness, sub-commander," Varka replied as she seated herself and began to stare holes in the viewscreen, "but—"

She didn't have to look around to see the suddenly outraged look on Liarka's face. 'But' was not a word that the younger woman favored often, along with 'patience', 'temperance', and 'moderation'.

Lifting one finger to stave off the objections, Varka modified, "We will wait until negotiations are underway. Bring up the coordinates of Ransk's ship on the main viewer."

The appropriate centurion obeyed quickly, and the starfield on the viewscreen, interrupted by the rough image of the asteroid in the far left corner and the shine of the distant sun on the right, was overlaid by a faint red haze. Several points blazed brighter colors.

Liarka turned to her console, situated directly behind the commander's chair. "This is Ransk's ship." The appropriate area pulsed rhythmically. "We believe he is keeping our objective in this area." Following her words, the display changed to that of an overview of the system. Across the coordinate plane, a web encompassed a region approximately one square AU in volume.

"I dare say we can get more accurate coordinates directly from the source." Varka rose from her command chair. "Send the coordinates of Ransk's ship directly to the transporter room." Stepping off the bridge for a few seconds, she reemerged toting a slim phaser rifle the length of her arm. "And no, you can't come with me," she added, preempting Liarka's request. Smiling to herself at the look on her cousin's face as she reclaimed the center seat pettishly, Varka prepped the rifle, impatient for the brief turbolift ride to be over so she could enjoy shooting the audacious Ferengi DaiMon.

**INSERT LINE HERE**

"_A deal is a deal…until a better one comes along." —_Ferengi Rule of Acquisition No. 16

Ransk tried to avoid shifting nervously in his opulent chair. It wouldn't do to show apprehension in front of a customer, especially one who was about to make him so very rich. Even with his riches all around him, the bargain of a lifetime being made, and the security of his ship protecting him, he was still experiencing some vague disquiet.

He had just as good reasons to be uncomfortable as he did to be secure. He was bartering off one of the great acquisitions of the modern age; he was doing so with a buyer who would not give his name, race, or appearance; and he'd cheated the Romulans. That imperious Romulan commander was doubtless beyond furious. But now back on his ship, he felt a little safer than he had on that asteroid.

In front of him, across a desk carved of the most expensive, lavish, and wasteful wood his money could buy, his client grunted and shoved a PADD across the lacquered surface. Keeping a wary eye on the…person…Ransk picked it up and negotiated through its menu. And there, in plain letters and numbers, was the agreed-on amount. It was colossal. Several DaiMons could retire in the greatest of luxuries for centuries with the amount being offered. There were, of course, sub-clauses galore, defining how and when the latinum would be paid, but Ransk skimmed this with a practiced eye and found nothing amiss…that is, nothing he wouldn't have put in there himself.

The one offering such gestured with one hand, which seemed to Ransk almost…spiny. That was another source of his discomfort. He didn't know who this person was or who it represented. He didn't want to know. Then he could always plead that he honestly didn't know should he ever be caught. Although, if he was caught, his profit off this deal alone would be enough to pay off anyone.

"The coordinates?" Ransk asked, pretending to misunderstand. "Why, of course!" He fiddled with nothing in his pockets for a few moments. "I do believe I must have misplaced them, do wait just a moment while I—" He was abruptly cut off as the gesturing claw descended to the wood of his desk and began to carve patterns in it, slicing through the hard material like tissue paper.

Without further ado, the DaiMon 'found' the required PADD and handed it over, reaching for the switch that would summon his personal bodyguards to escort their distinguished visitor away from him.

A single bright beam dispelled all hopes of ever being able to use that button again. Ransk pulled his hand back, yelping in shock and shaking the appendage although it had not been scorched, so accurate of a marksman had taken the shot. The alien bidder spun towards the source, grunting.

From the door, opened unnoticed, stepped Varka Sa'tkir. She took full advantage of the fact that the person who had dared to outbid the Romulan Empire had just presented her with a full-frontal view and a perfect target. The slide of a finger, the press of a touch-sensitive button, and the unfortunate bargainer suddenly sported a blackened hole through his chest.

Lest this should prove to be not enough to kill it, Varka erred on the side of caution and obliterated his head and abdomen as well. Barely a second after the first shot had been fired, there was barely enough left of it to give off the smell of horrifically scorched meat and burnt stone, doubtless from the scales, that filled the cabin.

Alarms by the dozen had been set off, and were whooping frantically, resembling Federation red-alert klaxons only in that they managed to emulate a handful of cats in a shaking sack. Ignoring them completely, Varka leveled the rifle at Ransk himself, who was standing behind his desk, motionless except for the involuntary trembling.

Keeping the emitter firmly trained on the shocked Ferengi, Varka causally stepped over the smoking, charred body and picked up the discarded PADD. Scanning it briefly, paging through with one hand while her left one held the rifle unerringly in the precise direction of Ransk, she smiled, resembling nothing so much as a vampire out of Terran legend, and muttered, quite unintelligibly to Ransk, "Ah, Liarka, how lucky I am to have such as you."

Ransk couldn't think. He couldn't breathe. All he could do was be totally aware that he was about to die, and there was nothing he could do about it. Certainly, every Ferengi that might have stood between this crossed Romulan and his own life was already dead by means of that blaster she was holding leveled at him.

As it was to turn out, he was quite right.

Varka Sa'tkir didn't even allow him the courtesy of last words. She simply looked him in the eye and said, "Add this to your Rules. Never cross a Romulan."

He was fairly sure that that was already one. Otherwise it would never have been added, for he would never get the chance. Even as he opened his mouth to say so, to say something, _anything_, DaiMon Ransk, too, went the way of the unfortunate tycoon that was now cooking on the plush Turkish carpet.

Holstering her weapon (and resisting the urge to make some bravado gesture with it as she did so), Commander Sa'tkir gave the room another vampire grin, turned on one booted heel, and strode out with the precious PADD firmly in hand, stepping over bodies as she went.

* * *

No little time later, having scared off whatever scorned bidders might have dared to lurk around, Varka curled her hands around the comfortably padded armrests, caught by the feeling of digging her nails into deep fabric. She was looking forward to exploring the lower decks.

Beside her, appropriately seated at her left hand, Liarka Ki'riin smirked triumphantly at her older cousin, and for once, Varka grinned back.

Rising, enjoying the sensation of standing at the helm of one of the most powerful ships in the quadrant, she placed one hand on the consoles to left and right of her, nodding to the centurions now assigned there. Elated beyond her wildest dreams, she did not imagine how she would present this prize to the Romulan Empire. No, now her dreams were of truly owning this magnificent ship, and being given the official command of her.

Caressing the smooth silver metal of the Ops and Conn consoles, she gave the crew its first marching orders aboard.

And the _Enterprise_ leapt into warp obediently, hell-bent for the Romulan Empire, under the command of Varka Sa'tkir.

_(To Be Continued)_


	2. Boldly Going Nowhere

**Chapter Two: Boldly Going Nowhere**

_In which space myths are discussed, Starfleet is unfair, and plots are concocted._

**Author's Note:** Yuck. Final exams. I hate them. Enough said. I'll try to write quicker from now on, but I'm running an epic simultaneously, so…I'll do what I can.

**Warnings: **Look out! Bad Star Trek pun! Really bad pun on the loose! I know it's been done, yeah, yeah, yeah. Hopefully this is different. (So I was bored in Social Studies about a year ago. What's your point?) High-five to **SonOfTed**, who spotted it right off!

**ON WITH THE SHOW!**

_It is a well-respected and time-honored tradition that the _U.S.S.Enterprise_ should, at some point, be stolen, hijacked, commandeered, or otherwise abducted. It has been upheld by then-Commander Spock in 2266; Admiral James T. Kirk in 2285, and again, briefly, in 2293; and Captain Rachel Garrett in 2342, the details of which, perhaps fortunately, remain sealed until 2500 by the order of the Department of Temporal Investigations._

_Despite numerous efforts, not until the Aldebaran Incident of 2369 was this tradition carried out by someone other than the _Enterprise_'s own captain and/or crew._

('Traditions: Enterprise', adapted from the _Unofficial Starfleet Guide_, edition XVI, circa 2372)

**INSERT LINE HERE**

In the orbit of Mars, and in pre-construction on the surface, surrounded by their fellows scheduled for launch, decommission, or re-embarking into the void, was a large percent of the inactive starships of the Federation Starfleet. Held in drydocks resembling giant space spiders and comfortably settled into ellipses by minimal thrusters, the ships were repaired, rebuilt, and in some cases, reborn in several new ships. The aging _Trieste_ shared space with the _Cleopatra_, who would have been shining new save for the paint spill that had taken place while not-too-carefully placing her identification markings onto the new hull.

Locked in drydock, the Starfleet Corps of Engineers' pet _Starship U.S.S. da Vinci_ underwent last-minute upgrades, not an uncommon occurrence. Still floating in two pieces, the _Odyssey_ waited patiently for Starfleet to finish running saucer separation demos so that she could be back in action, flanking the _U.S.S. Spartacus_, Utopia Planitia's resident ship, which had just returned from wandering around the outskirts of the Sol system.

There was also a Starfleet legend that the ghost of the _Enterprise-A_ was hanging around in orbit somewhere, but, being a ghost, no one ever managed to catch it on sensors, which served to keep up the myth quite aptly. A ghost caught on camera was no ghost at all. It would be no fun to prove or disprove it, and, should it be disproved, there would be no excuse for losing small components. As it was, such disappearances were appropriately, if somewhat gruesomely, attested to be the _Enterprise-A_ stubbornly trying to piece herself back together again, and cheerfully disregarded.

It would have been fitting for the later incarnation of the legendary ship to join her ghostly cousin in the massive space-based facilities of Utopia Planitia, but amid these all, positively cluttering the skies and easily seen from the surface as gleaming points like unmoving bright stars, the one most welcome wasn't there.

Nor did they have any idea where she was.

Allowing no trace of his worry and rage to show on his face, Captain Jean-Luc Picard pulled his eyes from the Mars sky, still sporting an elusively vermilion tint despite the oxygen now flooding the atmosphere, and turned his back on the bay window, shutting out the sight of the blue sky and its red haze where he wanted to see black space punctuated with streaking white stars, hoping in vain to turn his back on the reddish soil of the surface several dozen meters below, and make it an unreality, as if by not facing facts he could hope to change things.

Ordinarily, a trip to Utopia Planitia would be a welcome change of pace. It would be a chance to rest, relax, and schedule shore leave among the planets in the Sol system, not to mention an opportunity for many crew members to see their families. Discounting the Borg invasion barely repelled three years ago, the Sol system always seemed like the comforting, untouchable core of the Federation.

This was not an ordinary trip, and hence Picard was waiting for one of the resident admirals to clear whatever paperwork, most likely connected to the current disaster, he had in progress off his desk and invite him in.

A Spartan room save for the aforementioned bay window, which jutted out nearly a meter beyond the bounds of the room, the admiral's outer office was bare of tasteful artwork, commemorative models of starships now gone, and even a well-stuffed couch. Even the carpet was a simple grey.

It was only when Picard wondered where a fish tank would ideally go in this room that he realized he was describing his own ready room, and pulled his mind away from critiquing the décor.

Troubled in mind, the displaced captain of the _Enterprise-D_ turned to pacing, prowling the edges of Admiral Ivan Langtry's waiting room like a caged panther, turning corners and skirting tables and chairs rhythmically, staring at the ground, unseeingly avoiding his companion.

More relaxed in seeming if not in actuality, Commander Riker sat rather awkwardly on the edge of a chair that hadn't been built for someone of his height and watched his commanding officer wear a trench into the floor. Bored and anxious, he was idly trying to figure out how long it would take Jean-Luc Picard to tread his way through the duranium to the deck below, what he would fall into, how it would look with Picard halfway through the floor, and what Data's expression would resemble if he asked the android officer to calculate _that_.

Thus, the remote smirk, which, unfortunately, the irate captain noticed.

He didn't even have to say 'Something, Number One?' for Riker to get the hint. Riker straightened in his chair, trying not to snap to attention in automatic response to the glare of offended patrician authority.

Hearing the stressed creaks that resulted from such an action, Riker hurriedly got to his feet before the chair gave out completely, but refused to join Picard in pacing. That would disrupt his calculations.

All the stupid things he'd been told were just hovering on the tip of his tongue, waiting for him to open his mouth and let them fall out. Uninformative Starfleet memorandums, double talk of same, and the desperate pleas of the crew.

_We'll get her back, right?_

_How many ships are they giving us?_

_Let's go get them!_

_Right, Commander?_

_Sir?_

_Right?_

Riker didn't want to be the one to tell them. Having lost one ship, the pride of the fleet, what were the chances they'd be given a second to hunt down the first? Surely it would be ruled far easier and far safer to change all the security codes and drum the entire crew, or at least the officers, out of the Fleet in shame.

On second thought, Riker kept his mouth well shut.

A polite hiss of pneumatic door was all that heralded Ivan Langtry's entrance. Pausing in the door, Langtry seemed to be gritting his teeth as if working up his courage lest Picard see fit to kill the messenger like the Caesars of old. The dark skin of his face was split by a burn that pulled the right side of his lip into a smirk, giving him an uneasily arrogant air, as one who was not quite secure in awesome power. Running his left hand across close-clipped black hair, he nodded to Picard, then Riker, who had taken up a position down-right of the captain.

Shaking hands with them both, he frowned. "I wish it could be in happier times, Jean-Luc," he replied to the courteous greeting that the captain had managed to rustle up from the yet-unplumbed depths of Picardian dignity. "Commander, could you give us a moment? Thank you," he added before Riker had a chance to reply.

What could he have said, anyway? Digging in your heels when given a direct order by a man two ranks above you was a bad idea, especially when one was already in deep, deep trouble. Yet Riker had not at all wanted to let Picard walk into the lion's den, so to speak, alone.

Every minute of his training and every drop of his respect for his commanding officer had insisted that he refuse the admiral and stick to Picard like glue. The duty of the first officer was to protect his captain. That was why the first officer led away missions instead of the captain now; better to lose the second-in-command than the ranking officer. Not that any life was expendable, of course, but the captain's was his first priority unless directly ordered otherwise.

He couldn't say any of this, of course. Not to an admiral, and he would never admit it to Picard outside the bounds of their shared duties. But Picard clearly understood his Number One's trepidation, for he turned to look Riker in the eye, having to tilt his head upward slightly, and gave him a slight nod that said that he sympathized and would be on his guard. It also said that he would have been glad of Riker's company and support.

So Riker was forced to stand in the middle of the room staring at the door as it closed as if his mortal eyes alone could see through the brushed duranium to the chamber beyond, and wished that Geordi La Forge had tagged along too. Heck, it would have been great to have Deanna here as well, and Dr. Crusher, and probably Data for his unflappable innocent optimism. While he was wishing, he added Worf to the virtual room before running out of floor space.

He retraced Picard's steps a few times, beginning to see some of the appeal in the repetitive action before eschewing the untrustworthy chairs in favor of leaning against the wall across from the window, dividing his gaze between the landscape and the firmly shut door.

It was taking the captain hardest of all of them, he thought. The events of the last few weeks too closely paralleled the loss of the _U.S.S. Stargazer_ in 2355 during the Battle of Maxia. Then, too, a ship had been lost to the enemy, but not destroyed, while under the command of Jean-Luc Picard. Having to abandon the _Enterprise-D_, their home for the last six years, had been one of the most difficult decisions the captain had had to make. His pride in his command and sense of honor as great as any Klingon warrior's had warred with his duty to the people under his wing.

Die honorably? Or live to fight another day, however cowardly it may seem? Which was the better route?

While sleeping last night, or more accurately, trying to sleep but failing spectacularly, Riker had been jolted out of his uncomfortable doze by the sound of red alert klaxons and the sound of Captain Picard's voice over the intercom, ordering the crew to flee their besieged ship. Crying out in horror, rejecting the idea that the _Enterprise_ could be taken, Riker had leapt from his unfamiliar bed, groping for his commbadge, trying blindly to speak to the captain, to tell him not to give up, that they could still beat the bastards, that all was not lost, damn it, _damn it_…

Then, standing barefoot and discombobulated in Mars gravity, his brain had caught up with his body, making him drop the commbadge in sudden reorientation. The shiny gold delta had bounced off his foot and rolled under the bed, where he hadn't retrieved it from until late this morning, for he had buried his face in the pillows, smelling so different from his recognizable sheets on board his ship, and steadily cursed the ones who'd stolen the _Enterprise_ out from under them until he'd run out of words and found himself repeating the same phrases he'd used fifteen minutes ago.

That had helped a little bit.

It had been weeks, but the strong emotions hadn't faded. Neither had the memories, echoing vividly through his skull at odd hours, making him stop and look around for the source of the alarms he was so sure he heard, bracing himself against shots that had been fired in another place and time.

Riker also happened to know that he was not the only one who'd been frequenting the holodeck in search of something to take out the fire within on. Worf had locked himself in one of the holodecks with a substitute for his calisthenics program set on Level Three, which didn't sound like much until one learned that Level One should be renamed 'Medium Pulped' and Level Two 'Absolute Slaughter of Whoever is Using This Program'. Luckily, extended use of the program triggered an alert in the medical center, and the medics had recruited a squad of engineers and set off to pry the doors open. 'Just in time' was not an ideal phrase to describe their timing, but it was extremely close.

Riker and many of the crew that he'd spoken to had resolved not to do anything about their emotional problems until the bigger problem had been solved.

Deanna Troi had said it, perhaps, best.

"Good for you," she had told him fiercely. "_Be_ angry. I'm angry! And I'm going to keep being angry!" The half-Betazoid counselor had brandished a fist at him, dark eyes almost glowing with rage; luckily, he thought, not at him. "Let's _all_ be angry together! Then we'll get something done."

However, while anger was a powerfully motivating force, it didn't do anything to move the cogs of bureaucracy. And it was a very bad sign that Starfleet hadn't given its full collective attention to the hijacking of the _Enterprise-D_. Had they been planning a countermove, surely they would have made it already. But surely, surely…

They couldn't be planning to write the flagship of Starfleet off. It wasn't _done_. The last time an _Enterprise_ had been written off she'd vanished 22 years into the future. There was nothing Starfleet could do about that. It had been a spatial anomaly. You couldn't go out and beat up on a giant hole in time to make it give back your starship.

Well, you could, but it probably wouldn't like it. It might just eat you in addition as retaliation; or spit out an alternate version of your universe; or expand; or even close, which would trap your original starship good and proper.

But a mortal aggressor…well, that was a whole other story, wasn't it? Riker was well noted for being fond of inventive and cunning strategies, but there was something appealing, in an old-fashioned way, about catching up with people who'd insulted you so and whaling the tar out of them.

All they had to go on were some hastily-memorized sensor readings, their location at the time, and the name, doubtless an alias, of the man commanding the pirate fleet that had brought down the _Enterprise-D_, much like wild dogs hamstringing a stag.

He'd introduced himself at gunpoint, with the gun pointing directly at them. Smirking over the damaged viewscreen at the chaos on the bridge with the insufferable air of one who knows that he incontrovertibly had the upper hand, he had laughed, as if knowing that they knew he was lying but were unable to do anything about it.

In the present day, Riker's hands balled their way into fists, and he managed to restrain from punching the walls in a futile gesture. He'd seen what that could do to one's knuckles, and it wasn't pretty.

Luckily, too, for it was at that exact same moment that Picard reemerged from Langtry's sanctum sanctorum, face whiter than his first officer had ever seen it with the exception of Locutus of Borg's hellish visage. Langtry was nowhere to be seen.

"Captain? Captain!" Riker cried, hurrying after him as Picard strode out of the lobby, barely giving the double doors time to open before sweeping through them, looking to neither left nor right and, from the looks of things, not paying much attention to what was directly in front of him.

Even with his longer legs, it was a good few minutes before Riker worked up the courage to cut in front of his captain's furious stride and stop him to demand answers. When he did, it was most of the way back to the transporter room that handled transport to and from the starbase where many leave-taking crewmen and –women stayed.

Picard stopped in his tracks, looking over his first officer's shoulder as if the younger man wasn't there, clearly waiting for Riker to move out of his way.

"Captain, what did he say?" Riker asked, resisting the impulse to put his hands on Picard's shoulders and shake an answer out of him…or at least keep him from falling down. All at once, looking directly at his captain, the bearded man realized that keeping moving had possibly been the only thing stopping Picard from collapsing, whether in rage or shock or fear he couldn't tell.

Finally acknowledging his Number One's question, Picard looked around, scanning for any people that should happen to be coming their way. Having confirmed that there was no one in sight or hearing range, Picard turned his back on the wall, leaning on it ever so slightly, closed his eyes and said, very carefully, "I've been offered a choice, Number One."

"A choice?"

Picard's eyes, when he reopened them, were harder than stone. "Starfleet has decided that the _Enterprise_ is lost. There will be no task force. There will be no retrieval mission. And there will be a court-martial as soon as one can be arranged."

Riker swore quite vividly in Klingon. It made a satisfyingly gruesome sound. Picard growled agreement in the same language.

"So what's this choice?" Riker finally asked, once he'd managed to get past the fact that the careers, if not the lives, of the command crew were pretty much trashed.

Now Captain Picard wouldn't look him in the eye. His jaw was set tightly, but he managed to grit out, "It could be a lengthy trial of many…or a short trial of one."

It didn't take Riker much more than a millisecond to catch up. "And you…you! You accepted their offer! You…"

Picard looked up at him, face like ice—very scary ice. "Number One, I am, for the moment, still the captain of the _Enterprise_, and _you are out of order, mister._"

"Aye, sir," Riker mumbled, cowed for the moment but still seething at the unfairness of Starfleet Command.

The lazy bastards! They didn't want to bother going after the _Enterprise_. They didn't even want to try! And in addition to that, they didn't even want to spend the time making sure the crew got a fair trial and a chance to save their careers. Instead, they'd given Captain Picard, for whom his crew or anyone else under his protection was his first priority, a deliberately unbalanced deal that would enable him to save his crew…by sacrificing himself. It wasn't _fair!_

Infuriated, Riker stood aside and let Picard continue on his way unobstructed to the transporter room, tagging along at his heels with his mind chasing itself in enraged circles.

Having his molecules scrambled and reassembled didn't unscramble his brain, and when he rematerialized on the starbase, he barely managed to return the transporter operator's routine welcome. He noticed, as fuel for his fire, that Picard managed to be perfectly ordinary.

Riker found it extremely annoying that Picard was being so calm when he was getting so angry on his behalf.

"Shall I inform the crew, Captain, or will you?" he finally asked, to give himself something to say and possibly do.

Picard shook his head. "No. No. Come with me, Will. There's something I have to say."

"I'm listening," Riker replied, noticing uncertainly that the captain had called him _Will_. Uh-oh.

"Not here." And not another word would he say until he entered one of the starbase's many viewing lounges. As per usual, it was packed, offering as it did a panoramic view of Mars and the shipyards as well as food and drink for the culinary-inclined.

Picard, still trailing Riker a few paces behind, cut through the crowd with a minimum of difficulty, somehow managing to acquire a spot far from any tables and very near the window, waving off a dutiful server mid-stride. He stood, hands locked behind his back, for a few minutes, staring out at the stars and the ships, but not, Riker noticed, the red and blue curve of Mars.

"Sir, why are we here?"

"Simply because, in this crowd, no one can overhear us here," Picard answered simply.

With no clear explanation as of yet, Will Riker, befuddled, instead stood and admired his captain's emotional control. The captain could have been contemplating the dinner menu instead of the collapse of the core of his entire life.

Finally, Picard turned around, meeting Riker's eyes squarely. "Will, you may leave at any time. You don't have to listen to this."

Riker managed to refrain from saying "Sir?" like a puzzled ensign, but it was a close call. As it was, he merely squinted down at his captain and waited.

Picard nodded as if he'd expected no less. "I do not accept their judgment."

This simple sentence had multiple effects on William Riker. The first was something like this: _Yes! Let's fight them!_

Then he remembered that he'd just chewed out his captain a few minutes previously, and the second thought went like this: _Oops._

"I'm sorry," Riker stammered, "about what I said, I didn't know…"

The captain held up one hand to halt the apology. "You were right."

Now Riker was really confused, and he said so quite bluntly.

Captain Picard turned back to the window as if it helped him verbalize his thought process. "Hear me out." And he waited until Riker nodded agreement. "I will accept the blame for the loss of the _Enterprise_. That is on my shoulders, and rightly so.

"But I will _not_ accept the loss of the _Enterprise_ herself. I will not lose another ship, Will. Not on my watch. Not again."

"Captain…what do you intend to do?" Riker hated the thought of doing nothing and waiting for whoever had stolen the _Enterprise_ to start using her against the Federation and Starfleet, for they were patently no friends to either. Whatever Jean-Luc Picard was planning, his second-in-command was all for it.

Picard turned to him, locked their gazes, and said, very simply, "With or without the Starfleet, I mean to recapture the _Enterprise_, Will."

All unbidden, an equation formed in Riker's head. It looked something like this: 2 plus 2.

He opened his mouth. Upon realizing he didn't have anything coherent to say, he shut it again. When he'd managed to sort out what he wanted to say, he came out with, "We're going to need a ship."

The expression, if quickly muffled, on Picard's face, one of surprised but grateful relief and gratitude, was worth all the trouble they were going to get into.

**INSERT LINE HERE**

In the engine room of the compact _U.S.S. Spartacus_, Riker glanced up at the ceiling to make sure it wasn't about to come down on him. Used as he was to the cavernous Engineering deck on the _Enterprise-D_, the dimensions of the stocky little ship continued to take him by surprise.

Granted, Main Engineering wasn't quite as small as he was pretending. He just really wanted his old ship back, and he was willing to bet Geordi La Forge did too. Riker ran the Friday night poker games back on board the _Enterprise_, and he would have laid quite a lot of money on that assumption.

The _Spartacus_ was an Akira-class starship, small, stripped, and built for battle. Often running ridiculously heavily armed, Riker had heard that the ship model was being redesigned to be a little more efficient, for although Akira-class ships packed a powerful punch, what crews did ship out on an Akira almost immediately reported burnouts, mostly due to too much charge and crossed wiring.

When he finally found Geordi, up to his ankles in wires and computer chips on the _U.S.S. Spartacus,_ Riker readily believed it. Spilling from a panel like a ball of replicated yarn or streamers that had been seen to by either cats or kids, conduits, some still pulsing with residual power, wires, and other connectivity devices were coiled across the floor for a couple of meters in all directions, some bearing clamps attached in odd places and spliced to each other with the modern version of the immortal favorite, duct tape. Some were even snaking up the wall, having been looped over convenient corners and held in place behind complicated-looking tools.

"Hey, Geordi, you under there?" Riker hailed curiously, bending over to check that someone was still attached to the boots poking out from the dissected wall. He gave the conduits a distrustful leer, not putting it past them to have eaten the blind chief engineer. They looked uncomfortably sentient like that, an illusion only reinforced when a small charge made one hiss and jump, sending them all twitching like animate charged spaghetti bearing only the slightest resemblance to the far more tame pasta that Riker was accustomed to cooking.

After a long pause, during which the commander actually did begin to worry that the _Spartacus_ had eaten Geordi, the engineer replied, "Yes, sir?"

"You got a second?"

In a voice and manner very unlike La Forge, he replied, "All damn day," drawling the words sarcastically and definitely very unhappily. As the engineer scrambled out from inside the panel, Riker braced himself.

La Forge was a wreck. Smeared with grease, sweat, and black stains of a definitely carbon-based nature, he looked like he'd just crawled out of an ancient and ailing Terran automobile. Although his VISOR hid his eyes, Riker could see the bags underneath them, even partly covered by mechanically-produced filth. The old uniform he was wearing was dearly in need of being freshly replicated, but even the replicator might not be able to save the garment.

Not being able to see his eyes hindered most people from being able to read his expression, but Riker and Geordi went way back, all the way to the _Hood_ even before _Enterprise_, and by the set of his jaw and slant of eyebrows, the commander could tell that the engineer was destructively depressed, as Deanna might put it. Seeing Geordi's desperately angry bearing, Riker was forced to wonder if the younger man was repairing whatever problem was up with the _Spartacus_' circuits or if he was making the problem worse, and whether it was intentional or not.

"Yes, Commander, what can I do for you today?" Geordi asked, pulling himself to his full height and crossing his arms defensively. Although the words were polite, his body language was anything but, clearly stating he wanted to be left to his sulking all by his lonesome.

There were tactful ways to get him to momentarily move past it. Then there were the fast and brutal ways. Riker opted for the latter.

"Lt. Commander, report on status of _U.S.S. Spartacus_!" he barked, feeling ridiculously like a drill sergeant or martinet.

Behind his VISOR, Geordi's eyes widened visibly as his spine snapped straight, almost involuntarily. Locking his hands behind his back and fixing his vision on a point just over Riker's right shoulder, he replied formally, "_U.S.S. Spartacus_ will be at full power in four hours, sir!"

If he was expecting Riker to keep snapping orders, he was disappointed. "Good. Now are you listening to me, Geordi?"

Wrong-footed for the second time in two minutes, La Forge relaxed his stance and met Riker's gaze with his own. "Yes sir," he said humbly. "What's going on? Do you need me for something?"

"Come take a break, Geordi," the commander invited him gently, already a little sorry for surprising him like that. "There's something you've got to know."

**INSERT LINE HERE**

"He _what?_ We're _what?_"

Riker scooted his chair a little further away from the table, avoiding flying drops of hot liquid as Geordi barely managed to pull his hands free of his _raktajino_ mug before punching one hand into the air. "Yes!"

The commander counted to three underneath his breath before shushing him, so as to not seem too edgy. "Keep it down, Geordi; it's not as if we have permission of any kind."

"Oh. Right. Whoops." Even this little bit of potential good news had improved La Forge by a long shot. The bags under his eyes were still there, but those were probably from lack of sleep. Energized by the prospect of getting their beloved _Enterprise_ back, the darkness in Geordi's bearing had vanished like a Romulan warbird in full retreat. "And this was the captain's idea? The _captain?_"

Riker smiled roguishly at Geordi, who was beginning to sound like an echo. "Long live Captain Picard and his sense of right and wrong," he said simply.

Geordi actually chuckled, raising his mug. "Hear, hear!" Tapping it against Riker's glass, he took a few more sips before coming up with more questions. "When are we going and where do we start from?"

"You're with us, then?" Even before the second word was out, Riker knew it was a silly question.

"Heck yeah!" Geordi was positively glowing. "How many crew do you want? I've got an entire engineering compliment and most of Beta and Gamma shifts chomping at the bit to take a crack at—" Riker cut him off with a wave.

"Well, first, how many people in a skeleton crew to fly the _Enterprise_, safely back to Federation territory—for I'll lay even odds she's not inside our borders any more."

"True." Geordi thought for a minute. "You do realize that we're going to be violating about every treaty in the book if we go through with this."

Riker nodded. "Yes. But I want the _Enterprise_ back."

"One hundred and twenty-five," La Forge declared, "and we better not take her into battle like that."

The commander scratched at his beard uncertainly, trying not to glance around as if Federation police would be lurking under tables with holorecorders. _Too many holonovels, Will Riker,_ he chided himself.

"We're probably going to be in enemy territory, Geordi," he argued. "We're bound to get into a fight."

"Well yeah, I know that," La Forge responded. "Now if we kept twenty-five and Data on board and put the other one-fifty on _Enterprise_, then between the two…All right, we can maybe pack another fifty in."

"In where?"

La Forge looked at him as if he were stupid. "Were you planning to walk?"

A sigh escaped Riker, along with a rueful shake of the head. "We're going to need a ship."

Geordi shrugged. "And I've spent the last two weeks mucking about in the guts of the _Spartacus_ on busywork, trying to exhaust myself so I don't have to think. No one's going to notice—or care—if I spend a little more time there, will they?"

"Geordi La Forge, you are a godsend," Riker chuckled. "You really think we can find one hundred and seventy-five people willing to risk their lives and career for a wild goose chase?"

Leaning across the table, Geordi pushed his empty mug out of the way. "Commander, you spend too much time on the bridge playing computer games on the main viewer. I, on the other hand, spend lots of time among the regular crew. The lower decks engineers, the young ensigns on rotation, the veterans comfortable with being middle-rank…the _Enterprise_ is our _home_, Will. We're going to do anything to get it back."

He straightened up with a nod. "Believe me; we're going to have a _waiting list_ for people who want to come with us. Better look out; the ones we leave behind will shanghai another ship and be right on our tail otherwise."

"You think we can do this," Riker realized. "It may actually be possible."

Geordi stood up. "I believe it. And you do too, or you would have turned the captain over to Admiral Langtry the instant he told you he wanted to chase the _Enterprise_ down. You'll have your crew, Commander. I'll get you the _Spartacus_. And we'll be ready."

As he left the room, Riker realized that the sullen man who had been in residence in the weeks since the loss of the _Enterprise_ was gone. In his place was the real Geordi La Forge—a man who carried with him the aura of hope.

Quietly, Riker pounded one fist steadily on the table; a sound one part triumph, one part optimism, and one part prayer.

_(To Be Continued)_


	3. Blind Man's Bluff

**Chapter Three: Blind Man's Bluff**

**Disclaimer:** Although I have acquired the _Enterprise NX-01_, _Enterprise 1701_, and _Enterprise 1701-D_, not to mention _Voyager_, I still cannot afford the rights to Star Trek itself, preferring to spend money on boxed DVD seasons of TNG and blank recordable VHS tapes.

**ON WITH THE SHOW!**

_In which a familiar name is reintroduced, many people are busy, and treacherous wiles play a part._

* * *

_In the grand tradition of Star Trek, let us jump, not only in space but also in time…_

It was very late, and it had been a long day, so possibly the last thing Beverly Crusher wanted to receive at that exact moment (and quite a few moments after) was a call from the bridge, especially since she was mostly asleep while immersed up to a stiff neck in still-warm water.

"Bridge to Dr. Crusher," The page jolted her from her half-somnolent state. Twitching in reflexive surprise, her mouth and nose went under the water level as she flailed to regain her composure and awareness.

"Go ahead, bridge," she replied before the captain could repeat the hail. She blew bubbles off her nose with a quick puff of air, folding an arm across her body as if the captain could see her through the commlink instead of only hearing her voice. With the other arm she groped for the towel she knew she'd left just next to the tub.

"Please report to the briefing room immediately. Out." Perturbed by the curt snap of the message, the red-haired doctor shot a glance equal parts annoyance and confusion at the ceiling in which the companel was technically embedded. Unless there was a medical emergency of some sort, the captain usually refrained from calling her so late in the evening, when she was supposed to be off-shift.

Grumbling at falling asleep in her bath and at being rudely awakened, Crusher hurriedly scrubbed water and bubble bath off of her body and thanked the gods of hair, baths, and starship life (should they happen to exist or care) that she'd taken pains to keep her wavy red mane dry as she snatched her discarded uniform from where it had slid to the floor against the wall when she'd carelessly thrown it at and missed the replicator. Cursing the feel of not only rough Starfleet-issue and replicator-patterned towels but also worn uniform, she pulled it on and, after a quick check of hair and clothes—more than one crewmember had horror stories to tell about running out of doors in too great a hurry—she headed out the door.

Before the pneumatic doors closed behind her, she added as an afterthought, "Computer, drain bathtub."

There were also a set of stories making the rounds about what happened if you abandoned a full bath and an emergency struck. Neither artificial gravity nor inertial dampers were perfect.

* * *

Stepping off the turbolift and onto the bridge, Crusher swept her eyes around the command center in the hopes of getting a hint as to what was going on. She saw no red-alert displays or electrical fires, no active consoles indicating incoming ships or bustling crewmen. To all intents and purposes, the bridge appeared quiet. Even the duty officers reflected this; neither Picard nor Riker was seated in the captain's chair, and the bridge was manned by ensigns and lieutenants, with a newly promoted Lieutenant Commander—one Matthew Ericson, she remembered absentmindedly—in command. At the moment, said Lt. Commander was seated at his ease in the central chair, and he looked up only briefly as she entered, glanced around in puzzlement, and proceeded across the upper tier of the bridge to the conference lounge across the way.

She was pleased to see that she wasn't the last senior officer to arrive; Geordi La Forge was still missing from his accustomed chair around the gleaming table. Data, ever composed, was standing next to the display screen at the far end of the room, and Captain Picard was pacing along the length of the enormous windows that offered such an incredible vista, now of stars slowly drifting to the rear of the _Enterprise_.

Crusher accepted the chair that Deanna Troi pushed out for her with one foot. "Were you sleeping?" her dark-eyed Betazoid friend asked softly as they waited for the briefing to begin.

It wouldn't have taken an empath to deduce that, so the doctor wasn't quite as impressed as she had been in the past with some of Deanna's predictions as she finished rubbing her eyes with the heels of her hands. "Not in my bed," she responded with a wry grin. "Why I bother to take a bath after days like today is beyond me."

La Forge's hurried entry cut short their discussion. Apologizing to all and sundry, the engineer finally asked the question those who hadn't been on the bridge all wanted to know: "What's going on, Captain?"

Picard left his scrutiny of the creeping stars to take his place at the head of the table. "Earlier this evening I received a communiqué from Starfleet," he told the six people who made up his senior staff. "We're being taken off the Johnson Comet survey mission."

Such a statement yielded mixed reactions. The _Enterprise-D_ had been reassigned to abet what someone may have considered poetic justice. A comet discovered and investigated by James T. Kirk's _Enterprise_ almost a century ago had, in its wandering, erratic path, set on a course for a more populated area of space.

Ordinarily such an event wouldn't even be worth a sideways glance from a starship of the _Enterprise-D_'s caliber, but the last time an _Enterprise_ had been involved with this comet, a planetary research team and a crewmember had been killed, the command crew of that _Enterprise_ had nearly fallen prey to the same fate, and a war with the Romulans had almost been provoked.

Clearly, the _Enterprise_ had survived, the war had been averted with some hearty bluffing on Kirk's part, and a cure had been found; but the comet that was the cause of it all had been left to go its merry way, for three basic reasons: it was headed out to unexplored space, they couldn't get within phaser range without being exposed to the deadly radiation, and Kirk had a schedule to catch up with anyway. Although it was not relegated to the unofficial 'We-_don't_-want-to-hear-about-it' file at Starfleet Command like so many of that starship's adventures, the Johnson Comet, named for the heads of the ill-fated research team, had been mostly forgotten about until it was registered as coming back the way it had left.

Someone at Fleet Command had clearly scratched their heads and remembered that comets were prone to doing that before deciding that this wasn't a problem that they really wanted to put up with every century or so, and the _Enterprise-D_ had been rerouted to complete its predecessor's unfinished business.

As the _Enterprise_ (any _Enterprise_) can find trouble anywhere, there had been an incident with a science department that had begged to go out in a shuttlecraft and get a closer look. Although their request was grudgingly granted, they'd neglected to take anyone who really knew how to fly a shuttlecraft, resulting in yet _another_ shuttlecraft dismissed as irretrievable and essentially the entire section being beamed to sickbay in various advanced states of old age.

Thus, Dr. Crusher's busy day, and she was one of the officers glad to see the back of that accursed comet.

"Good," Worf rumbled from the other end of the table. "Chasing comets is not an appropriate duty for a starship. Especially since we are not even allowed to catch up with it." Worf had been in favor of blowing the 'damn rock' to bits and just staying out of range of the radiation.

"I sympathize, Mr. Worf," Picard agreed. "The _Callisto_ will be arriving to take our place and ensure that the Johnson Comet is safely guided into a nearby star, where it will incinerate with no danger to anyone concerned."

"Where are we going, Captain?" Geordi La Forge wanted to know.

Instead of replying, Picard spun his chair to look at Data, who obediently took up the thread of the conversation.

"This morning at 0630 hours, Starfleet Command received a transmission from the new Farpoint Station," Data told them all. "It specifically requested our presence as soon as possible."

"Farpoint?" Geordi whistled. "There's a blast from the past. So they rebuilt the place?"

"Indeed. Although the Bandi have mainly elected to reconstruct New Farpoint on their own, limited Federation assistance in the preliminary stages insured that no additional spacegoing energy life-forms were harnessed for use in the construction of New Farpoint," Data confirmed earnestly. He was puzzled by the wave of brief chuckles that went around the table, not realizing his perfectly sincere tone made the ironic words funny.

"Well, I assume they're not calling to catch up on old times, so what do they want our help with?" Riker asked, folding his hands together on the table and leaning forward. "And why us?"

"The message was unclear when Starfleet Command received it," Data told him. "Further subspace transmission has only degraded it. Attempts to establish communication with New Farpoint Station have met with no success. A mechanical failure is possible."

"Or a jamming signal of some sort," Geordi added. "Could we tell if the problem is natural? A natural disaster or something? As I recall, there's a whole lot of geothermal energy in Deneb IV's core. It could have destabilized."

"Possible. But unlikely. The Bandi have inhabited Deneb IV for the majority of their recorded history. They are noted for control over their planet's energy sources."

"A military threat then," Worf interjected. "Recommend we maintain Yellow Alert until further information is available, Captain."

"Make it so. Data, at warp 8, what is our estimated time of arrival at Far—New Farpoint?"

Data barely blinked. "Two days, eleven hours, seventeen minutes."

Picard nodded sharply and rose from his seat. "Mr. Worf, tell the conn to set a course for Deneb IV at warp 8. New Farpoint will just have to hold out for those two and a half days. Mr. Data, I want you to work with Dr. Crusher on the information the L-CARS contains on the Deneb system and surrounding space. Find out what natural causes could possibly have frightened the Bandi so badly. Mr. La Forge, we may be going into battle, and the _Enterprise_ must be at full efficiency. I'll want status reports at 1500 hours tomorrow. Dismissed."

* * *

As the meeting adjourned, Geordi left the way he had come, heading back to Engineering on autopilot while assembling a roster of things he wanted done, moving around the few people in the halls without paying much attention.

Turning the corner into Engineering, he came back to the present and scanned his domain, mentally registering the number of people on duty. The night shift was as full of talented people as any other, but he couldn't help wishing some of his assistant chiefs were on call. There were two things he could do about it; he could either brief them on the situation in the morning or drag them out of their off-duty cycles should the need arise.

Geordi stood as closely as he could get to the center of the room, back against the railing that surrounded the warp core. It pulsed in his peripheral vision as he filled his lungs and yelled for attention.

"Hey, people, listen up!" he shouted, clapping his hands together sharply twice. There were ways and then there were ways to get the attention of subordinates and crewmates, but in the end there was something to be said for volume. All over Main Engineering, heads snapped up and around corners in response to his summons, gold-shirted engineers and technicians stopped in mid-stride and turned in his direction or leaned over the catwalk, and fingers paused on touchpadds—or, in some cases, kept inputting data and commands. Geordi grinned. He liked that feeling of everyone turning to look.

When he was quite sure he had everyone's full attention, he summed up what was going to happen in the next few days. "The captain got a call from Fleet Command. Anyone remember Farpoint Station?"

He got a scattering of sarcastic or amused applause, whistles, and laughter from those who had come on board there or since heard the story.

"Well, they've gone screaming for us to save their butts from something they can't or won't tell us about again, and Captain Picard wants his ship running at one hundred percent efficiency." Assuming the rumor mill was working at even half-efficiency, that little speech had probably already reached Ten-Forward, no doubt spawning another dozen skewed versions on their way. Hopefully Counselor Troi would see to issuing a memo to the ship at large before someone tried to claim (to an audience) that the captain had declared war on the Q Continuum, or some such.

Singling out three of his most senior engineers, he began passing out jobs and assigning teams. "Mr. Jeffries, take four more people and inspect the core, I want the shielding around it reinforced, I'm darn sick of containment breaches threatening every time someone bumps against it! Mak'shem, wake Alpha shift and get them down here, we're all going to be pulling double shifts for the next two days. Lt. Vered, get down to deflector control and run a level-two diagnostic while we have the time, I've been noticing a spike I don't like in their energy curve."

The chief engineer snatched two more engineers and handed out an equal number of assignments before catching the lift to the upper level of Main Engineering, taking a moment to survey the organized chaos building to an eruption below.

"Chief, anything for me?"

He turned to see one of his best mechanical engineers, Lieutenant Bernice Hayes, awaiting orders with her characteristic puckish smile floating around her face. He grinned back. "Yes, actually. I need you and a few other people to physically strip down as many consoles in here as possible, see if you can find that loose link that makes them blow out every time we need to actually do something." He cast about for someone without a duty yet. "Take…"

"I'll do it, sir," another engineer volunteered. It took Geordi a moment to place him as a newly transferred Lieutenant j.g., Sandor Helayne.

"Yes. Good. Try to stay out from under everyone's feet, all right? Find one more person and then get to work."

Helayne waved over another man to shanghai him into the job, but La Forge had already moved on to deal with Reginald Barclay, whose lanky form was hovering uncertainly by one of the upper-level doorways as if not sure if he should be there or not.

"Reg! Good, I can use your help." One of the things on his list of things to do that he'd composed on the way down had been finding something for Reginald Barclay to occupy himself with. "Would you put that imagination of yours to good use and program some simulations into the main computer?" It was not a question. "We'll be running battle drills on the go, and the ones they've got the cadets at the Academy writing for us are either stale or bad." Or both. If he had to lead his subordinates through one more clumsily disguised rehash of one or another of Captain Kirk's more debatable exploits, he might just lodge a formal complaint.

Barclay brightened up noticeably, standing up straight. He was rather taller than Geordi that way. Smiling a bit manically, clearly delighted with a task so suited to him, he practically saluted. "Aye, aye, sir! I'll get r-right on it. Um…" His enthusiasm dimmed somewhat and he looked around. "Um, should I work in h-here?"

For a moment, La Forge weighed the options. "Wherever you think you can work best, Reg. It's your call."

The nervous lieutenant jumped slightly as a new wave of engineers poured in, the influx of people seeming to make up his mind for him. "I'll stay out of the way, sir," he decided. "I'll be in Ten- Ten-Forward if I'm needed," he promised, and scuttled out, making sure that everyone he met on the way to the turbolift and in the lounge would know about their new mission.

"Sir, a moment?"

A small man, dark-haired and blue-eyed, Ensign Glenn Darrin tapped the Chief Engineer's shoulder. "I had an idea…"

* * *

Twelve hours away from Deneb IV and New Farpoint Station, the fever pitch of the ship's occupants had died down a little bit, although curiosity was still at a height. Contact had still not been established with the Bandi, and as the _Enterprise_ got closer and closer to the system, communications with anywhere outside a certain radius became difficult and then impossible. The communications department predicted that their contact sphere would continue to shrink as they neared the source or most dense section. Mapping the field proved impossible, as the sensors were also affected, and establishing a network of probes wasn't likely to work efficiently at warp speed.

Although no one was able to prove that the jamming was anything but natural in nature, Lieutenant Worf continued to pressure the captain and Commander Riker to assume that it was artificial and raise the alert level to Red. He was repeatedly refused, as Captain Picard did not want to approach a situation not yet determined hostile armed to the teeth. Amber lights continued to blink in the corridors.

Barclay's new simulation outlines turned out to be a mix of hopelessly out-there and extremely ingenious and tricky. The efficiency ratings took a sharp, surprised drop before the crew rallied and put more effort into defeating the twists and turns of even the most lunatic of scenarios. Several people managed to find out who wrote them and asked him for the parameters so they could devote their off-duty time to beating them. Geordi placed the best three and a snippy note in a file to be shipped off to Starfleet Academy when they got clear of the interference. So touched was Reginald Barclay by the reactions that he stopped stuttering for nearly the full two days and moved through the ship a more confident man, until the console that Sandor Helayne was rewiring exploded and nearly resulted in the complete shutdown of Deck 36.

"I think we found the bad connection!" Helayne had shouted ironically.

"Yeah, but now where did it go?" Hayes had shot back, nodding at the chaos that resulted from wall console components being blasted across Engineering.

After that incident, La Forge had given the go-ahead to Glenn Darrin's project, and the man was soon deeply embedded in backing up all engineering controls and reconfiguring the substation on the bridge to serve as a secondary Engineering control should the computer try to seal off Deck 36 again at a more inopportune time, because it is a law of the universe that once in a while, Main Engineering has just got to get blown up.

No rumors considering war on the Q Continuum were reported.

* * *

On the outskirts of the Deneb system, Captain Picard ordered a full stop for careful analysis, not wanting to enter blindly, although he had to settle for less than he wanted.

"Communications and now the sensors are still having trouble penetrating the interference patterns," Data reported. "They have become denser the closer we come to Deneb IV. However—" He tapped at the Ops console. "At this distance sensors can detect no active warp trails or unusual radiation sources, although such may be visible at a closer range."

"Orbits of all six planets appear to be stable," Ro Laren, at the conn, chipped in. "There doesn't seem to be any unusual activity in the sun, either. All looks quiet."

"Thank you, Ensign," Riker replied, seated in the chair directly behind her. He made an audible effort to be polite—he _still_ didn't like the Bajoran much. "Keep scanning for warp trails, both inside and outside the solar system. I want to know if so much as a freighter comes near."

Ro looked tempted to say something snappy back, but bit off whatever she'd been planning before it could leave her tongue.

"What sort of space fleet have the Bandi been using as they rebuild Farpoint?" Picard asked Data.

The android officer didn't need to consult his console; instead, he spun in his chair and addressed Picard directly. "The Bandi have little space-faring activity, although the average Bandi ship can achieve up to warp factor six. As they are a fairly isolated race only recently increasing interaction with the rest of the galaxy, the majority of their vessels are generally used to import natural resources for building that they cannot manufacture on their own. However, in recent times the level of activity in orbit has decreased dramatically. Although we do not have fully confirmed reports, I would estimate that the Bandi have less than six or seven currently active vessels."

"Any other Starfleet ships in the area?" Riker asked Worf, turning ninety degrees to address the Klingon lieutenant while still keeping one eye on the main viewscreen.

"No, sir," Worf rumbled. "The _Callisto_ and the _U.S.S. Crazy Horse_ are the closest vessels."

"And with this damn interference, both of them are out of communications range," Riker grumbled, folding his arms across his chest and returning to glaring at the main viewscreen, where the star Deneb shone directly ahead.

"Unfortunately correct, sir." Worf was not happy.

Picard continued to stare directly ahead as if trying to extract answers from the starfield by the sheer force of his gaze.

"Ensign, proceed to Deneb IV. Warp two. Take it easy," he cautioned. "Keep an eye on your scanners. If anything unusual appears, bring us to a full stop until we know what it is. Mr. Worf, are shields raised?"

Worf sounded vaguely insulted as he replied—of _course_ the shields were raised. "Aye, sir. Should I ready phasers?"

Standing on the edge, so to speak, Captain Picard was willing to listen to his security chief in order to protect his ship and crew. "Make it so," he agreed. "Take us in, Ensign."

Ro Laren sent the _Enterprise_ forward at essentially a crawl, moving carefully into the solar system. At ten times the speed of light, it would take them about an hour to reach the Bandi's home world, which was currently on the far side of the system due to the angle at which they had approached.

It was a tense hour. Data continuously assisted the communications department with their increasingly futile efforts to penetrate the interference cloud with one hand while monitoring the status of space around them with the other. Obedient to the captain's order, Ro brought the whole ship to a dead halt twice due to an asteroid seen just in time one time and an abandoned mining platform, still sparking with residual energy that had nowhere else to go, the second, while said captain paced the bridge, stared at the stars, and monitored information through the console mounted on his chair arm repeatedly.

With Deneb IV growing steadily if fuzzily on the viewscreen, Captain Picard ordered Worf to resume attempts at communication, but by the time they slid into standard orbit, there had been no indication that anything had gotten through.

"Picard to Engineering," the captain said, tapping his badge. It buzzed at him, and only then allowed La Forge's voice to transmit through, albeit interspersed with static.

"La Forge here, captain."

"Mr. La Forge, I want a probe launched into the atmosphere of Deneb IV, at a midpoint between New Farpoint and the _Enterprise_."

"A relay beacon, sir?"

"Essentially. I want it to catch our transmission and boost the strength before continuing to transmit to the Bandi."

"We're on it, sir," Geordi replied cheerfully. "Two minutes, tops. I'm sending someone up to the bridge to direct it."

"Understood. Bridge out." With a reflexive tap of his commbadge to close the channel, Picard finally sat down in his center chair and attempted to look like he was relaxing. He hated being blind and deaf and mute like this!

As a testament to the speed of the ship's turbolifts, a technician in a golden shirt and ensign's pips strode onto the bridge not a minute later, nodding to Picard and Riker in polite salute before activating the Engineering substation on the bridge. After a few seconds' work, he turned to face the command well. "Probe is ready, sir," he informed the captain.

Picard nodded stiffly. "Place it midway between us and New Farpoint, Ensign…"

"Darrin, sir. Probe away."

It was impossible to really feel the effect on the ship as she spat the little beacon into the atmosphere of Deneb IV, yet many people on the bridge would have sworn that they could feel or hear the moment when the torpedo tubes launched the probe. Within a split second, a thin trail of light arcing through the cloud cover below indicated its passage.

Darrin's fingers darted over the keys. "I've got a link with the probe," he reported as he worked. "Try hailing now."

Worf tried again. After a few seconds' frustration, his eyes widened in surprise and he stood up straight, having been hunched broodingly over his console. "A channel between the _Enterprise_ and New Farpoint has been established. Hailing frequencies open, sir."

Picard managed not to breathe a sigh of relief, turning away from the back of the bridge to face the main viewer. He tugged his uniform top down as Riker dropped into a comfortably familiar position at his shoulder.

"New Farpoint Station, this is Captain Picard of the _Starship Enterprise_. May we inquire as to the emergency that led you to request our presence here?"

For a few moments, the Main Viewer continued to reflect only the stars and the curve of the planet below. Then, a haze of static interspersed itself between the stars and the screen, gradually clearing to the point where a figure—but nothing else—was visible. Either the jury-rigged connection was bad, or the Bandi were having serious trouble on their end, which seemed to be the case.

"_Enterprise_? _Enterprise_, is it really you?" The haze on the other end cleared just enough for the hailing frequency to pick up the shell-shocked and pale visage of Groppler Zorn of the Bandi, who had been in charge of the original Farpoint Station. Never the bravest nor the most determined of beings, he now looked nothing but terrified, huddled in on himself, clinging to the half-wrecked terminal before him, and covered in white dust.

Picard recognized him. "Groppler Zorn, what has happened?"

If Zorn heard him, he wasn't listening, preferring rather to continue to panic. "Captain, who would want to invade Farpoint?"

"Invade?" Picard tried to cut in, but Zorn was having none of it.

"We're a peaceful people; we've never threatened anyone…" Debatable. "We're not _warriors_, _Enterprise_, we need _help!_"

"Groppler—" Picard tried to interrupt again, to no avail.

Zorn was wringing his hands and babbling frantically. "We didn't do anything, we had no warning, why would anyone want to attack us?" he continued to wail.

"Groppler Zorn!" At the captain's sharp shout, Zorn looked up and met the captain's eyes for the first time. His eyes were wide and running with the dust in his eyes.

"Who attacked you," Picard asked, somewhat more quietly, as he had the Bandi's attention.

"We don't know. We don't know," Zorn repeated. His image fuzzed threateningly, as if wondering whether to collapse or not.

"Mr. Darrin, keep that signal intact," the captain shot over his shoulder, and the picture steadied somewhat.

"What's your status? When did the invasion start?" Picard demanded to know. To Worf, he added, "Keep scanning for incoming ships."

"Aye, sir," the tactical officer replied as the Bandi tried to organize his story.

"It was…a week ago. About a week—I don't know, I don't know what day it is or what time or…or…" he trailed off, stuttering worse than Reg Barclay on a bad day. "They just—just appeared. In the middle of the night! There were ships—we had ships in orbit, but they never saw anything, they just appeared like, like ghosts or, or…"

"How did they attack?" Picard prompted him. Damn, but he wished they could be having this conversation over something else than a relayed, tentative connection—possibly a replicated-wood table and a hot cup of tea, but if the communications and sensors were being disrupted, he wouldn't bet the man's life by ordering him beamed up to the ship.

Zorn shook even more as he tried to remember, glancing over his shoulder repeatedly and fearfully. "Ground troops," he said finally. "Soldiers, lines of them, groups. They…I think they beamed down and they started shooting. We never saw who they were, or where they came from. I thought we were all dead, but the—the wounded, they ordered us to drag them into Farpoint, and, and they woke up some hours later. They surrounded us, and when we tried to sneak out, they shot to kill…" His shivers finally caught up with his words.

"How many, Groppler? How many invaders are there?"

"I don't know. I don't know. If they see us from the windows, they shoot. We haven't looked."

"Guess, Groppler. Give me a guess."

He shrugged—or maybe it was the shaking. "Three hundred…four hundred. There could be more."

"Have your own people tried to rescue you?" Commander Riker asked.

Zorn blinked at him as if he hadn't realized the first officer was there. "No. No. Farpoint is isolated from the rest of Deneb IV, and…we couldn't get a transmission to them—we called Starfleet first, before the jamming started. Did I do right?"

"Yes, Groppler, you did right," Picard reassured him. "Make sure your people stay away from those windows! _Enterprise_ out." He turned to Worf as the screen and Groppler Zorn's frightened expression blinked off. "Mr. Worf, I want a full security complement, and I mean _full_, ready to storm Farpoint Station. Everyone you've trained to hold a phaser rifle needs to be organized. Can we use the shipboard phasers?"

"Probably not a good idea, Captain," Riker interjected before Worf could respond. "We don't have anything to target."

"Also, the phaser locks are only semi-functional at this time," Worf elaborated. "I do not recommend it. We would run a severe risk of damaging only Farpoint Station. It is the only thing big enough to lock onto," he added under his breath.

"Understood." Picard raised his voice to activate the internal communications system. "Bridge to Engineering. Mr. La Forge, I assume you were listening?"

"You're right, Captain," Geordi's usually cheerful voice came back grimly. "And before you ask, we can probably get the security squads through the transporters, but only a few at a time. Maybe five or six maximum, sir. O'Brien's not too happy about this damned interference either."

"That's not good enough, Geordi, we need those transporters," Riker said.

His sigh was audible. "Aye, sir. We'll get to work on them right away. La Forge out."

"We could use the shuttlecraft," Worf suggested. "The shuttles would provide not only transport but protection."

"Yes! Yes, that's good, Mr. Worf. The shuttles give the squads the advantage of height and maneuverability. And if, as Groppler Zorn seems to believe, these invaders did beam down, it would give us an edge they don't have. Make it so. Take every shuttlecraft fit to fly. You'll coordinate with Commander Riker."

Riker nodded and headed to the turbolift, Worf only a pace behind.

* * *

From space, it was quite a sight, as a fleet of little ships poured from the belly of the much bigger starship, a flock of smaller dragons from under the wings of a much bigger one. _El-Baz_, _Onizuka_, _Vornholt_, _Kagan_, _Rusch_, _Scott_, _Ayers_, _Sharee_, _Kotani_, and more; the biggest outpouring of shuttlecraft all at one time that the _Enterprise-D_ had ever sanctioned.

Before they reached the atmosphere, they split up, approaching New Farpoint from many different angles. Some swept wide and swung around so far that they were facing their point of origin, the _Enterprise_; some dove almost straight down.

Whatever was affecting the communicators seemed not to affect the engines, and so the good Lieutenant Worf had plotted out angles of attack for each and every one of the shuttles. There would be no communication until they reached the surface, as it was important to maintain radio silence and, unless the shuttles were nearly bumping hulls, it was nearly impossible to set up a coherent transmission.

Aboard each shuttlecraft, a picked squad of ten men and women hefting type-3 phaser rifles taken from the now-nearly empty armory on board ship prepared for battle. Hand-to-hand ground battle was not a common occurrence in Starfleet; at worst, fighting in the halls of a starship was as close as they would get. But Worf had been diligent in training his security division in all manners of combat, including some distinctly non-regulation styles.

The little fleet cut through the atmosphere and converged on New Farpoint Station, which bore a remarkable similarity to the original, although it lacked that structure's organic fluidity, now bearing notable signs of manual construction. This close to the surface, the pilots started sensor sweeps, searching for any large cluster of life-signs.

To their extreme surprise, the only bio-signatures came from within the station itself! Not a living thing could be scanned outside the walls of New Farpoint.

That should have probably been their first clue that all was not as it seemed.

By the time they got a second clue, it was already too late, for the shields on the _Enterprise_, reprogrammed in advance by traitorous wiles among the lower decks, lowered all shields and deactivated weapons on automatic timer, coinciding not coincidentally with the calculated shut-off of the jamming device taking considerable power from the immense geothermal resources of Deneb IV, which had the added bonus of hiding its own actions by its own actions.

To all effects and purposes, the _Enterprise_ was a sitting duck for the hijackers hiding inside New Farpoint Station, armed, organized, and ready to beam up to an unarmed, unprepared, and completely surprised starship.

_And then jump back again._

**Author's Note:** Yes, I am running three simultaneous plot tracks. They are as follows: _Enterprise_ under the Romulans; the Dispossessed (and Unhappy about It); and the Hijacking of the _Enterprise_. I'm so darned sorry this took so long. What with Christmas and my birthday, time ran away from me, and I couldn't get _Uneven Odds_ to work out, so I got distracted. I'm very sorry. But I hope this chapter is good even though I rushed through the last page. Changing topics again, I don't know about you, but I've noticed that one of the primary purposes of Starfleet shuttlecraft is to _get blown up_. Kudos to those who have noticed where my new shuttle names came from!


	4. User Unfriendly

**Chapter Four: User Unfriendly**

**Author's Note:** For the edification of my readers (and because it's fun) I have inserted 'In which…' statements at the beginning of each chapter, lest the plotlines get confused. Should they become annoying, I will stop.

**ON WITH THE SHOW!**

_In which we check in with the Romulans while they investigate the Enterprise, which throws a tantrum at an inopportune moment_.

Varka Sa'tkir loved her new ship. She realized that it probably wouldn't be hers for very long, and that it wasn't technically hers now, but she loved it. It was big and powerful and, although not resembling the comfortingly familiar hawk shapes she had grown up with, beautiful.

However much she loved the enemy's ship, however, she was fully aware that she was in enemy territory.

Her first order to the experts in Federation technology, many of them spies and infiltrators extracted for just this mission, was to concoct a convincing cover story to explain why the _Enterprise_, flagship and cavalry, could not respond to communications from its allies and masters. The research team, which appeared to be a mélange of humans and other humanoids, including a high percentage of Vulcans and Rigellians, assigned a Vulcan look-alike to it and continued with its decoding of the memory banks.

Halfway out of the door, she had turned back to the motley collection and added, "And when that has been done, all of you report at once to sickbay, where your cover disguises will be removed. I will not have to see Federation aliens on my ship."

Doubtless they were all Tal Shiar agents and were eagerly informing their agency of her arrogance and possessiveness the moment she turned her back, but it was worth it for the feeling she got every time she used the phrase '_my_ ship'.

Another group of Romulans, who at least looked like Romulans, were endeavoring to project a false reading of a human-mix crew onto the sensors of any starship they should happen to encounter. The jamming device Ransk had claimed to have used so effectively during his capture of the _Enterprise_ on Deneb IV in the first place, which could have been usefully tuned to remove this problem, had not been found on his ship, no matter how carefully Varka's crew turned it inside out. Perhaps she had killed him a little too quickly.

Upon further reflection, perhaps not.

In any case, they were now traveling at a leisurely, unremarkable pace on an indirect course for the Romulan Neutral Zone and home. Despite the protests of the crewmembers that had never been on an espionage mission, including Varka herself, she had refused to make a straight fast shot across Federation space. That would be like painting a long fiery trail behind them, waving a banner that read 'Hijacked Starship on the Run!' as they went. Thus the idle, looping course that, instead of a fiery tail, resembled instead the course of a starship rather drunk on blue Romulan ale—all double-backs, odd detours, and sudden turns. Only charitably could it be said that they were heading toward the Romulan Star Empire.

On the other hand, their course was not altogether due to pertinent strategy. The programmers of the _Enterprise_, as unlikely as it was that a Galaxy-class starship could be stolen without leaving some kind of trace, had ensured that the thieves could not, at least, get very far.

"Ye _GODS and little demons!_"

Liarka, seated in one of the _Enterprise_'s omnipresent comfortable rotating chairs, buried her hands in her auburn-tinted hair lest she put one of those hands around the hilt of her favorite weapon and attempt to extract information physically from the databases, and stared furiously at the lines of code that refused to reveal their secrets. Convinced that her centurions had merely been idiots all around, she had taken it upon herself to correct their purported errors, despite the fact that she knew much less about navigational databases than the navigators themselves.

"Cousin, you're shouting," Varka informed her from the door. When she had decided to check on her sub-commander's progress, she had fully expected her to have had no luck. The younger woman simply always insisted on trying everything for herself.

"The navigational menus have been shifted again," Liarka complained. "And I locked those off!"

"Have you considered that it knows your code?" her cousin asked.

"Impossible!" Liarka defended. "I used the most recent encryption from the High Command. There's no possible way this computer could have broken it in the _ten seconds_ it took to collapse again!"

"Let me see." Varka tapped her cousin on the shoulder, and Liarka reluctantly yielded her place in front of the touch screen.

After a few minutes' investigation, she shook her head and told Liarka, "It's too good, cousin. Our code is obstructing the flow off information to the rest of the computer, like a noose or a blockage. The computer notices and reroutes the information to another junction, and when you try to curtail that, it does it again. You'll be chasing it all around the system at this rate."

Liarka invoked her favorite patrons again and reached for an intercom panel. "Subcommander Ki'riin, calling Centurion Sulla. Report to Main Engineering _now_!" Not waiting for the experienced programmer and spy, head of the anti-encryption team delegated back in the Trianguli system, to respond, she closed the channel and reclaimed the chair, almost colliding with her cousin, who dodged just in time. "Thrice-damned Federation computers," she muttered.

Ignoring Liarka's frustrated cursing, Varka rounded the pane of transparent aluminum separating her from the gently pulsing blue warp core and ascended the small one-person elevator to the upper catwalk, disdaining the upper floor proper in favor of balancing gingerly above the two-and-a-half story drop. It was a long way down to the bottom of the warp core, and she stared into it with apparent relish, disregarding the skeleton crew assigned to man and analyze Main Engineering.

She wondered briefly if the _Enterprise_ knew in its analytical recording databanks that it had been taken over by non-Federation members. She considered herself lucky that computers couldn't care. No doubt it would report its records to whatever department of Security ended up with it on Romulus as blithely as it would tell any Federation outpost.

If that damn code ever got broken. So far it wouldn't allow them access to fleet movements, heavily encoded frequencies, and other heavy-security files. It wouldn't even tell them if some files existed. In a spare moment, probing through the exhaustive Library-Computer Access and Retrieval System, she had idly tried to confirm a favorite legendary space story, about of the planet of ghosts called Hermeticus II by the Federation. A commander much like herself had been dispatched to investigate, using the _Enterprise_'s computer banks, and, according to rumor, the _Enterprise_ itself. No information had ever come back to Romulus, and the vessel and its crew were written off.

The LCARS system now insisted that the file didn't exist, meaning either that it really was just a legend and therefore not worth wasting computer memory on, or it had been restricted. As the LCARS system had contained information on practically everything else in the galaxy, ludicrous or not, Varka had been forced to give up her futile search and sleep.

Since then it had been her barometer for the decryption project, which had been going on around the clock for the week since they'd acquired the _Enterprise_. Some days it would merely inform her, in the rather prissy voice of a mature woman who knew she was in control and enjoyed being so, that the file was restricted, and ask her for an access code and a retinal scan. Other days it insisted that the file didn't exist, and indeed that the keyword was not a recognized word in over 33,000 known languages and dialects quadrant-wide.

On one memorable occasion, it had told her quite frankly and confidently that the file, the ship, the Commander, and the universe didn't exist, and began to work out an extensively logical proof of such a claim using the mythical Rosier's Encyclopedia as a basis. That was how she knew that Liarka had taken over the debugging. She had the deepest respect for her cousin; the subcommander was invaluable and could command a ship brilliantly, but she couldn't figure out how a ship worked, which was the only reason Varka wasn't worried about her job.

They had time to do all this because the now-Romulan spies, having returned from their stint in sickbay none the worse for wear, had concocted an interesting series of excuses for various occasions should they be asked to identify themselves. They had extracted several situations from a databank full of training scenarios found in the central computer's recent memory, and discarding some of the more esoteric ideas, began to plot their way around them. It was keeping the espionage addicts happy and out of Varka's way, so she was all for it, even when some of their odder suggestions turned up on her console of a morning over a cup of various liquids. She'd been working her way through the replicator's enormous memory throughout the week, adding her favorites to an unofficial list of Romulan-approved dishes that was circulating among her crew.

Of course, the scramble bug got to that too after a few days, replacing the menu with an extensive inventory of the cargo bays that, upon inspection, turned out to be four years out of date.

Although annoying, such small incidents were of little consequences, and the programmers seemed to be making progress against the problem codes. Having trained on relatively recent simulations of a Galaxy-class starship for a brief but intense time before embarking on the mission to actually take the ship, the crew appeared to be adapting to Federation technology well. One starship, it seemed, worked much like the rest.

A common off-duty practice, although off duty time as rare enough, was exploring the lower decks and taking incredulous note of how much wasted space there was. Much of this could probably be alluded to the hasty departure of the _Enterprise_'s original crew; although they had had time to take very little with them, the Ferengi had plundered what was left under the conveniently Ferengi-oriented Ferengi Salvage Code (if it's not nailed down, it's yours to take; if it is nailed down, bring a heavy crowbar).

Varka herself had been unable, at first, to adapt to the sheer expanse of living space, so different from the economical quarters aboard her last command. The average D'Deridex class of warbird had a roughly equal crew complement to a Galaxy-class starship, even though it was almost twice the size of the latter. The remaining space was devoted to engines, weapons, and the cloaking mechanisms, which far outstripped the elderly models of a century ago in power, complexity, and, regrettably, size. So having claimed the former commander's quarters in accordance with the oldest of traditions, she had spent quite a lot of her down time in one room with the door closed. This she would not admit even to Liarka, who was, on the bottom floor, still critiquing at volume every isolinear chip and circuit she could get her metaphorical hands on.

Varka sat and watched the warp core pulse until she heard the note of her cousin's voice change, and a male voice, surely the summoned Centurion Sulla, interjected in a futile attempt to defer her wrath. Hoping to prevent tempers from getting out of hand, she rose to head off the growing argument, the crux of which seemed to be that Liarka, in her arrogance, had disrupted some decoding program or another, an accusation that the sub-commander was denying with the most fervent of assurance and no little offense.

However, before she could descend the one-man elevator, she heard a panel whir to life behind her. At first, she considered this no great event, and continued to move forward, but she stopped after a moment, having heard or seen no other person enter beyond the sorely afflicted Centurion and two of his assistants.

Turning, she saw the same that she'd heard—nothing and no one. Despite that, a console had lit seemingly by itself, and rows and columns of numbers, letters, and other symbols, some quite arcane, were spinning by at speed. Connecting this with Sulla's work downstairs in spite of her meddling cousin, Varka lunged for the nearest equipment locker and pulled out one off the ubiquitous Federation tricorders to begin recording lest she miss possibly decoded information.

So it was that she caught on tape, albeit a tape that would be mysteriously wiped clean not six hours later, the first overt indication that the Romulans were not as alone on the _Enterprise-D_ as they thought.

_GO AWAY_: the screen paused on, just long enough for the tricorder to register it, to say nothing of Varka's own eyes. It spun for a little while longer then continued with: _I DON'T WANT YOU HERE._

Only later would she wonder, why 'I'? Why not 'we'? As it was, she had only enough time to realize that the increased whirring from the computer meant that it was building to overload, and make a break for the warp core, which she assumed correctly had its own shielding.

Out of time and options, she swung her legs over the railing and clung unsupported over the edge. A heartbeat before she fell she could have sworn she saw eyes in the billowing flame bursting out from the self-destructed console.

But surely that was the adrenaline talking.

It certainly got the attention of Liarka and the technicians, who looked up just in time to see their commander fall from on high into a briefly crumpled heap as a blast of light turned the warp core green for a blinding instant and cause it to miss a beat of its pulse although the actual process of combining matter and antimatter continued, luckily, unimpeded. Making various noises of alarm, the four Romulans alternately gaped; looked in shock at the readings, which obstinately would turn out to show no record at all of the incident; or, most wisely, pretended to have seen nothing.

Varka swore under her breath as she picked herself up. How embarrassing. Not at all good for her status as commander. It became even more embarrassing a second later, as she tried to put her left foot down flat and promptly jerked it away from the floor with a hastily-muffled shriek. It didn't help that, being on hands and knees, this promptly brought her toes into abrasive contact with the dark grey Starfleet carpet. She went a very pale shade of puce and took a deep breath that was not under any circumstances to be considered a gasp.

Reluctantly, she accepted her cousin's arm up, holding her broken ankle as loosely as she could. "A console exploded, with no apparent cause. Find out what made it do that," she snapped at the centurions, who were trying to ignore her moment of weakness. "And repair the short circuit." Remembering, she looked down at the ground for the tricorder she'd briefly used. It lay innocently enough, but she did not dare release Liarka to bend over and pick it up. She'd already been knocked over too many times today. "Before it overloaded, it displayed a set of data. It should be in the tricorder's playback memory. I want to know what it was."

The trio saluted her and hurried about their business. She waited until they'd all gotten to the upper floor, Sulla winning the elevator by dint of rank and the two younger techies climbing the ladder to the left of the warp core, before putting a little more of her weight on Liarka, who was being remarkably patient with her. She'd once seen her relative break her ankle and keep running. Granted she had not been in a state to know what she was doing, and had compounded the break so badly that she'd had to spend a month and a half in an actual old-fashioned _cast_, but Varka wasn't exactly sure how much of that incident Liarka had been conscious enough of to remember and thus remind her of.

"And that's all that happened?" the sub-commander asked, in a tone of burning curiosity. "That's _it?_"

All things considered, Varka considered that rather tasteless. "That's not enough?"

Liarka rolled her eyes, which one was technically not supposed to do in the direction of a commanding officer, but Varka had always found that her cousin functioned better if they at least pretended that her elder wasn't holding her leash.

"Sabotage, you think?" Liarka asked, helping her hobble out into the corridor and in the direction of the nearest turbolift.

She scowled, and not from the pain in her ankle. "Tell me, what would you say if I asked you if there was a stowaway aboard my ship? One from the original crew."

Liarka hesitated, caught between indignation and the faint idea that she was walking into a verbal trap. "Is this on the record?"

"For the record, and the moment, let's say it's not. Deck twelve." This last, of course, to the turbolift.

Her second-in-command didn't look too reassured. "I'd say that you were a damned idiot," she replied tentatively. Speckled rather liberally through her permanent record, among the commendations for things best labeled Enthusiasm, were multiple references to Insubordination, Disrespect, and Insolence, to name a few. Her post at Varka's left (technically) hand had been frank nepotism. One could not fairly say that she had learned her lesson, but at least she was _learning_. "Which I haven't," she added quickly. "Sir."

"And if you did find one, say, just by chance," Varka continued, "what would you do with them?"

Across Liarka's face was clearly printed that she was reviewing her options and picking her current favorite. "Toss them out an airlock! Sir."

Varka sighed, shoulders drooping, and accepted more help in order to limp down Deck Twelve. "Try again."

When not making split second judgments, Liarka actually did come up with the right answer sometimes. "Find out how to get into the computer." She grinned, a demented production that started out as the germ of an idea and spread across her whole face. "Yes, _sir!_ I'll get right on it."

Varka felt a very brief flash of sympathy for the poor idiot who'd found a hiding place that had defeated even the Ferengi. There was no way in any of the nine hells that it would defeat Liarka with a mission. "Do it, Subcommander. And I'll make my own way from here."

Liarka released her arm and waited for her to get to the doors before turning on one heel and heading for the bridge. She was good at this…

* * *

After being dropped a good twenty feet by an explosion, Varka was ready to call it a day. But not fifteen minutes after hobbling into sickbay and daring the orderly on duty to comment by her glare alone, she was sprinting for the turbolift and thumping the wall to get it to move faster.

She burst onto the bridge, remembering at the last second to limit herself to an industrious stride on her newly healed ankle. The bridge was in a high state of agitation, with panels spewing information at top speed and a constant hum of information being coordinated not to mention the red-alert klaxons that had come on automatically upon registering that the ship had come under attack. It was a bridge that didn't yet know if it was going into battle, but had an increasingly strong feeling that it was, and wanted to be ready.

"Report!" she snapped, vaulting over the last foot of arch separating the upper level and command well of the bridge. A half-second before she landed, another shot rocked the ship, making her stagger as she hit the floor, recovering quickly. Booting Liarka out of the center seat imperiously, she pulled up the status summary automatically generated by the computer on the panel to her right.

Unfortunately, it told her that 'No Relevant Data' was available. She told it inaudibly where to look for its data before tuning into the disjointed reports coming in.

"Looks like a Talarian ship, though that's no guarantee it is them," Liarka told her, all business…mostly. "We're flying a Federation starship, after all."

"I know that, subcommander, shut up," Varka snapped. "Centurion, did they hail us before attacking?"

"No, sir," reported the centurion manning the weapons console behind her. She still wasn't used to not having Liarka at her back. "They just dropped out of warp and started shooting. Shields are at sixty percent, sir," he added.

Varka growled, low and angry. "They know who we are," she snarled. "Where are they aiming?"

"They're trying to knock out our deflector dish and shield generators, Commander," the centurion replied.

"Return fire," Varka ordered, clenching her fists. "Destroy them."

The centurion did not reply, but instead released two bursts of phaser fire in quick succession. The first sent the Talarian shields glowing red; the second did more damage. The ship reeled back before regrouping and diving below the _Enterprise_'s saucer section in an attempt to outrun the ship's phasers.

"Helm, evasive maneuvers. Keep us out of their range." Liarka took over to give the commander more time to focus on the weapons.

Her instructions were good. Under her directions, the enormous starship leapt in one convulsive move to some distance; the Talarian ship, taken by surprise, turned to follow, releasing their version of projectile weapons against the _Enterprise_.

Liarka leaned over the helmsman's shoulder, placing one hand on the lower console. "Turn us around," she commanded, "then go to Warp Two on my signal."

She waited impatiently as the _Enterprise_ corrected from its sudden jump to face the Talarian ship, so that the two ships were nose to nose, albeit five hundred thousand kilometers apart. To take the Talarians off guard, a photon torpedo impacted with the shields, making them flicker.

Varka was busy directing the balance in the distribution of energy between weapons and shields, so she tuned in only at the last moment. It was barely enough time.

"All power to the shields, now!" she shouted.

The centurion at Tactical danced his fingers over his board. Propelled by the urgency in his commander's voice, he threw everything they had into the shields. The lights dimmed and the shields became visible, glowing with all the energy being pumped into them, as Liarka gave the command. "Now!"

The _Enterprise_ shot forward at ten times the speed of light, using the over-energized shields as a physical weapon. The Talarians' last sight was the prow of the ship they had tried to take from the Romulans, which was wreathed in light that would have burned retinas blue had not the point abruptly became moot.

Fire blossomed briefly into the vacuum of space, licking for a moment against the bigger ship's shields as it blasted through the wreckage. Deflector shields were not designed to repel a direct impact from something as large as a Galaxy-class starship, and they gave easily and quickly under the attack.

The smaller craft splattered across the supercharged shields like a bug on the galaxy's biggest windshield. Some of the smaller pieces penetrated the bubble to impact at high relative velocity on the ship itself. Hull breach alarms whooped, and Varka shouted orders to seal off the relevant sections over them. Liarka grinned fiendishly, enjoying the ride.

When the tumult had mostly ceased, the attacking ship was space dust or particles only slightly bigger, and the _Enterprise_ had come to a stop several million kilometers away. Throughout the ship, repairs were already being made. On the bridge, Varka glanced briefly at the helm and said, unwittingly in the grand tradition of such things, "Let's get the hell out of here."

She then folded her arms and raised one eyebrow at Liarka, allowing no clue as to her mood to show on her face.

Liarka was not up to defying her cousin in such a non-mood, and quickly turned and saluted, fist to chest, eyes fixed on a point just above and behind her commander. "Sir."

Varka allowed the silence, which closely resembled that which is generated by many people holding their breath and waiting, to continue for a few seconds longer, long enough for Liarka to glean that she was _really_ unhappy.

"Next time you decide to inflict damage on _my ship, subcommander_," she said icily, "do have the courtesy to alert me _first_."

Subcommander Liarka managed not to cringe. It wasn't the voice, or the words, or the stance. It wasn't, in short, anything she'd managed to pin down, much less emulate. It was the Voice of Command, and it was angry. So she saluted again.

There was a long pause. No one was stupid enough to look their way. Five sets of eyes stayed fixed firmly on their panels.

Varka Sa'tkir broke it first. "Resume pre-plotted course for the Neutral Zone," she commanded. Then she left the bridge, having annexed the captain's ready room as a novelty much appreciated in the design of Federation ships.

Her second in command waited a few seconds until she was _certain_ the door was closed and Varka wasn't listening with her ear to the door. In an effort to regain her lost dignity, she cast around the bridge for someone to snap at. She found nothing, because the crew were well used to Liarka Ki'riin and her communicable bad moods.

Finally, for lack of anyone to take her temper out on, she retook the command chair with a maximum of grace and a minimum of dignity. Sulking thunderously, she muttered to no one in particular, "I like that maneuver. It wins fights like this one."

Well, it did, but she also just liked running over little ships like that.

_Some Time Later_

It wasn't even a big cabinet. Nor did it have an imposing lock that forbade all and sundry from even trying to open it. No, rather it was a rather noncommittal cabinet that exuded an air of 'totally unimportant, basically invisible storage compartment'. Only someone very bored or very, very stupid would try to open it. Only someone very clever with plenty of time and a state-of-the-art analytical computer would be able to do more than just try.

And, of course, the person with the key.

To all but a very select number of people, the cupboard was not worth remarking on, much less paying attention to. Those who did know what was inside contrived not to mention it, because it contained a good example of one of those things that you only needed to know, on an theoretical level, was there. There was no need to, for example, _do_ anything about it.

She turned the key. Because this was the twenty-fourth century, it wasn't an actual physical key, which was, in retrospect, quite lucky. It would be more accurate to say that she bypassed the quadruple-encrypted computer lock with a minimum of difficulty.

Within the small compartment were a handful of disks in the manner of petrie dishes, which, it seemed, would never go out of style. Like petrie dishes, a sensible person wouldn't open them, or encourage their contents to spill all over the ground. The contents had, several years ago, caused a minor disaster that had, eventually, been overcome. Officially, all such containers had been confiscated, and had subsequently caused more than a bit of legal trouble. Most unofficially, there were still a few…backup versions on board.

She opened them. The locks on these, too, were encrypted, but she still opened them. She didn't smile at the contents, but she may as well have.

With a short, sharp shock, generated by a conveniently askew surgical device that had been knocked around during the recent turbulence and made a handy conductor when push came to shove, she encouraged them to leave their petrie dish prison. They scattered all over the interior of the cabinet and spilled onto the floor. Gradually, stimulated by the sudden jolt of energy, they began to wake up.

_Hello, little cousins,_ she thought at the tiny creatures when she judged they could understand the gist of her message. _Can we work together this time?_

_To Be Continued._

* * *

**Author's Note: **Shorter chapter this time. You will survive. After all, with the three plotlines established, I don't have to do quite as much setup per chapter. Fair? Besides, I wanted to get this chapter out. Back to the displaced crew next chapter. Something may, in all probability, explode. 


	5. Grand Theft Starship

**Chapter Five: Grand Theft Starship**

**Disclaimer:** Le'letha would like to claim ownership of the U.S.S. _Spartacus_ and the ARG (**a**ssorted **r**andom **g**oldshirts) contained within. She does not own _Star Trek: TNG_. Rather the reverse.

**ON WITH THE SHOW!**

_In which a committee forms, many people are sneaky, and there are a few unauthorized explosions, not to mention one major adrenaline rush._

Besides protocol, there wasn't much reason for many people to need to work the night shift on a ship in drydock. With its internal computer slaved to the starbase's central command database and its physical form protected by the drydock structure, there was little that could threaten a starship by itself. Anything that got to one specific starship would have to get not only through the starbase's outer defenses, but also get back out while trailing alerts and cables like confetti.

Lieutenant (j.g.) Regan Arue was one of the unfortunates relegated to the graveyard shift—midnight to pre-dawn, groundside—on the _U.S.S. Spartacus_, which hadn't been outside the solar system in two years. Its last assignment beyond running errands for Utopia Planitia, which usually kept it in-system, had been getting the civilian population, a mélange of technicians and scientists technically not part of Starfleet, out of the way of the steadily oncoming Borg threat. The disaster had been averted before Earth had been destroyed, but it hadn't been the work of the little fast _Spartacus_. That had been the _Enterprise-D_, of course, the heroes of the hour again.

But, he reasoned as this thought came to mind, the _Spartacus_ was still here, wasn't it? As for the _Enterprise_, rumor had it that it had been written off. Word was that the entire command crew was facing court-martials. Of course, he knew better than to count on rumor. It was, after all, so often wrong.

Casting a cursory glance around tight little Main Engineering for any potential problems or—far more threatening—supervisors, and seeing nothing and no one, he propped his black Starfleet boots up on the nearest panel, which was in sleep mode, and prepared to do likewise. He'd been paying strict attention almost all shift, and as his relief time got nearer and nearer, his focus began to dim. It was giving him a headache anyway.

Far too soon, a tap on the shoulder sent him jerking awake. His chair rolled backwards, and he barely avoided falling embarrassingly to the ground. Struggling to get both boots on the ground at the same time, he managed to focus on the man who'd woken him.

Geordi La Forge raised his hands defensively, mustering a shaky smile. "Whoa, whoa, Lieutenant! You all right?"

"Yeah," Arue blurted, discombobulated at being woken. "Fine. What're you doing here?" He winced at the sound of his own voice. "Sir."

La Forge shrugged, wandering away from the lieutenant JG and staring despondently at the gently pulsing warp core. Arue wondered what it looked like to La Forge through that VISOR.

"Sir?"

With a start, the blind engineer snapped out of whatever trance he was in. "Sorry. It's nothing. Look, I—oh, never mind."

Geordi's shoulders slumped, and he turned to leave. He hadn't gone three paces before Arue jumped to intercept him, hoping to be able to do him some favor so that no one would hear about him sleeping on duty.

"Commander, if there's anything you need, you only need to ask, you know."

This served only to irritate the other man. "What I need, Lieutenant, is my _ship_ back. Seeing as there's a snowball's chance in Vulcan's Forge of that, forget it." With that last snap, Geordi La Forge swerved around Regan Arue and continued on to the door, boot heels tapping out an angry staccato in his wake.

Stunned at his venom, Arue was left standing in the middle of Main Engineering gaping like an idiot. He continued to do so until La Forge halted just out of range of the double doors' sensor web. As if struggling not to begin shouting again, he clenched his hands into fists and tensed.

When he turned back around, Regan Arue was back at his console running diagnostics, for all the world as if nothing had ever happened and Geordi La Forge didn't exist.

He didn't even look up when Geordi shuffled sheepishly back over to his station. "Sorry about that, Regan," he apologized humbly.

Arue kept his eyes on his board.

"Guess I'm just a little tense, you know? I mean, how are we supposed to deal with having a ship snatched out from under us? Anyway, I'm sorry. I better go." Halfway to the doors, he stopped, looking around the room as if puzzled.

"Haven't you gotten your new orders yet?"

"New orders?" Arue looked up hurriedly. _Damn it!_ Had he slept through official orders? He decided to take a risk. "What new orders?"

If La Forge connected his present confusion with his former state of somnolence, it didn't show. "I happened to overhear someone in Lounge 5 talking. She said this baby was being sent out to the Oort Cloud again. Didn't hear what for, though."

"Oh." Arue visibly relaxed. "Just another run around the block, huh?" The Oort cloud surrounding the Sol system was a haze of comet debris, natural space junk, and proto-planetary matter that hadn't been used up in the formation of the system itself. Trapped at the balancing point between Sol's gravity and the spin of the rest of the galaxy, it was a mineral graveyard in the shadowy fringes of the system. The tentative balance between the two forces tended to cause odd gravitation effects. One such, dragged in-system by a haphazard comet, had contributed to the near-destruction of the _Enterprise_ during the notorious incident with the V'Ger probe.

La Forge looked up at him, fishing for more information.

Arue gave it to him. "It's nothing unusual, sir. _Spartacus_ gets sent out to ferry research teams out there or collect samples all the time. Such a waste, though. She's made for action, not poking at rocks."

With a somewhat subdued grin, the Lt. Commander threw up his hands. "But what can you do about it, eh?"

The other man shrugged. "Well, thanks for the heads-up."

"No problem." He hesitated, fiddling with his fingers for a few seconds. "Um…could you use a hand?"

"Huh?" Not, Regan Arue admitted privately, one of his more intelligent comments, even for today. And it actually didn't take much thinking about. La Forge had been hanging out lending aid both where necessary and unnecessary, as if desperate for something—anything—useful to do. Arue had no real idea what it must be like to have your home for six years stolen out from under you, but he pitied the man.

"Sure," he answered. Geordi's downcast look lifted slightly.

"Really?"

"Of course." Arue pulled up the checklist from the last time _Spartacus_ had, well, shipped out. "You know, I noticed a flux in the warp engines when I came on duty. I notified the base, but, well, they're in no big hurry to send anyone else down here. Odd, though," he added thoughtfully to a sympathetic Geordi La Forge. "You'd think they'd want a problem like that fixed, seeing as she's scheduled to head out again."

"How big of a problem is it?" Geordi asked. "Maybe the desk pilots though it was no big deal."

"Yeah, maybe. I mean, unless you tried pushing the engines past Warp Nine for too long, or rerouted too many systems through the core, there probably wouldn't be any problem."

Geordi winced. "But after that…boom, eh?"

Arue winked at him and mimed an explosion with his hands. "Ka-blooey."

The two engineers chuckled at fickle starship engines together.

**

* * *

**

In all fairness, Geordi La Forge hadn't _technically_ lied. However, if you looked not-too-closely at the last few minutes, he would have been guilty of nominal lying.

He had heard someone in Lounge Five talking about getting the _Spartacus_ off base. It wasn't Arue's fault for not knowing that Lounge Five had recently been unofficially appointed the headquarters of the Committee for Getting the _Enterprise_ Back from Those Bastards, so named by a manically cheerful William T. Riker.

Through a bit of inventive computer work, Data had managed to 'book' Lounge Five, which happened to be mostly out of the main rush of traffic on top of having an excellent view of the starscape unobstructed by anything much, for a variety of rather nonexistent events. For two days, the senior staff had been running furtively around Utopia Planitia recruiting people they thought would be useful or absolutely vital to getting the _Enterprise_ back.

If anyone official, say, the Base Commander, had walked into Lounge Five without giving any warning, they probably would have been confronted by a tableau of chaos consisting mainly of PADDs, actual hardcopy, a buzz of conversation, drinks, enough _Enterprise_ officers with their heads together to be extremely suspicious, snacks, and, most likely, a quickly escalating argument between Ro Laren and Will Riker, who got along like a house on fire…in other words, quickly, heatedly, and mutually destructively.

Espionage was not a topic taught at the Academy, but tactics and resourcefulness were, and anyone worth their salt could come up with a few clever ideas.

Before too long, and with a remarkable lack of damaged furniture and spilled drinks, a basic plan had been whipped into shape, and various skeleton divisions organized under assorted members of the command crew, consisting of those considered loyal, trustworthy, and known well enough to work well together.

It had been decided, after an increasingly long and loud debate that was ended only by an executive decision from Captain Picard, that the ship they were after was the _U.S.S. Spartacus_, a ship that was small, very fast, and sufficiently well armed to assist in negotiations. It was also relatively unknown in Starfleet annals, so fewer people were likely to be inconvenienced than if they tried to borrow the _Hood_, for example. Also, Geordi had been spending quite a lot of time helping to refit it recently, so he was not only already acquainted with the ship but also with the crew.

That was how Geordi had ended up as the bait for this stage of their plan. His role was simple. It went something like this:

Walk in like you own the place; distract whatever Starfleet idiot was on shift. (That part was Ro Laren's idea. She had been the one to cut through all the stupidly elaborate ideas about this step.)

Cause some kind of accident. (It didn't have to be a big one, although a big accident would be good. It _did_ have to be fixable.)

Step one had gone perfectly. Time for step two.

_Warp engines, huh?_ Geordi thought, looking rather contemplatively at the warp core. _Well, that gives me an opening._

He bounced his fingers on thin air just above the keys thoughtfully, and then began to type. Several displays started objecting, so he muted them cheerfully and fed the panels a smorgasbord of passwords, consulting, from time to time, a private file he'd saved in the _Spartacus_' computer some time earlier.

_Thank you, my friend Data, and your incredible hacking skills,_ he thought cheerfully as he input command code after command code into the system. _Now, remember, Geordi,_ he reminded himself before he got too creative, _you're going to have to fly this ship at some point._ It would be best not to damage it beyond all hope of repair.

Only a few seconds later, his efforts were rewarded by a sudden unprofessional yelp from the lieutenant across the room. Dutifully forcing his face into a mask of curiosity, he turned around. "What's the matter, Regan?"

Regan Arue was staring down at his panel in horror. "The- there's a…" he stuttered, sounding for a second like Reg Barclay on a bad day.

"Whoa, calm down," Geordi said soothingly, patting the lieutenant's shoulder. "Let's see…" _Yup,_ he added to himself, _that's a temperature imbalance in the antimatter pods you're seeing._

To his credit, Arue was already trying to correct the problem, hands rushing across the keys desperately. To his detriment, he was babbling. "I don't understand it! I mean, one second it was just fine, and the next, there was this spike in the temperature gauge!"

He paused, scanning his readings carefully, and released an audible sigh of relief. "Man! What on earth does this stupid thing think it's playing at?"

_C'mon, c'mon, kick the console…yes!_

"Ow…damn it…what!?"

Plaintive alarms started wailing all over Engineering, filling the room with amber light, and the computer voice smugly warned them both that a breach had been "detected in trilithium containers".

Arue swore violently, knowing full well the toxic effects of even a small trilithium leak. No reaction was ever perfect, and even the highly efficient matter-antimatter reaction that charged the powerful warp engines of Starfleet technology produced some waste. Under inopportune conditions, the burnt-out husks of the new dilithium crystals combined with inevitable stray particles of deuterium—the 'matter' of the reaction. The product, trilithium, was highly toxic, and was usually kept in deep dark corners of the starship until it could be safely disposed of at some so-appointed facility.

Geordi had gotten lucky. The _Spartacus_, being on rather a leisurely schedule, had not yet amassed sufficient trilithium to warrant the expensive and inconvenient procedures involved in disposing of the admittedly deadly waste.

Before Arue could beat him to it, Geordi slapped his commbadge and called all backup teams to Engineering.

"Wait, you want more people down here in the way of that stuff?" Arue yelled, catching his arm.

"I want extra hands _helping_, Lieutenant," Geordi snapped back. He pulled away to search out proper radiation suits from storage compartments, making rather a mess in the process. Whoops. He used his activity to cover the fact that he had most of his fingers crossed, which might have accounted for his clumsiness.

By the time he had about two-fifths of the lockers all over the floor, some more of his experiments in destructive programming caught up with him, and there was a sullen boom a little too near the base of the warp core. Arue yelled with terror and started opening all the channels he could, which amounted to very few.

"The computer's cut us off!" he yelled, diving to the floor beside Geordi as Main Engineering began to fill with smoke. "I can't raise the base; hell, I can't even raise the other side of the doors!"

La Forge shoved the nearest rad-suit into his desperate hands. "Put that on. We don't have time to wait for backup."

Arue's eyes went very large, in retrospect a bad reaction considering the smoke. Scrubbing with one hand at suddenly stinging eyes, he nevertheless pulled the bulky, awkward suit on.

_Step three: tell us when you've accomplished one and two._

Well, Arue had done that for him, sending an all-channel distress signal out when he'd deliberately blocked all but the channels his friends were on. Now, assuming they'd held up their end of the plan…

Geordi had no reason to doubt them, but he was still a little worried. All it would take was one team not able to get into place, and the plan was shot. They really needed a good excuse to get everyone on board the _Spartacus_, and an emergency was a pretty good one, all things considered.

However, if anyone else but the emergency response teams staffed exclusively with _Enterprise_ groundees showed up, there was going to have to be a lot of fast talking. If the _Spartacus_ crew had refused to give up boring graveyard shifts to genial _Enterprise_ replacements, he was going to have a whole shipload of not-in-the-know people on his case.

Geordi had isolated Main Engineering with _Spartacus_' own command codes and faked the trilithium leak. He'd covered his tracks fairly well, but he was in quite a hurry. It hadn't been perfect.

For example, the explosion had been real. So was the smoke filling Engineering most stiflingly. However, not all the smoke and vapor was from the explosion, which had been caused by a relatively unimportant and easily fixable component situated quite close to the bottom of the warp core.

Some of it was from the mildly toxic gas being pumped in through Main Engineering's closed-circuit ventilation system, courtesy of the med team. That part of the operation, it seemed, had gone off perfectly, judging by the acrid fumes in the air. It was already starting to affect him, despite the antidote Beverly Crusher had pumped into him earlier.

He signaled for the other man to follow him, privately counting down the time until his friends could get there. _Come on, hurry up!_

* * *

Ro Laren was still, after more than a year, trying to get used to the fact that if she was wearing a Starfleet uniform and acted like she had the run of the place, _no one would care_. No one was accusing her of being Bajoran (guilty, mister!) or getting above her station.

In fact, no one had challenged her over anything in almost an hour. It was getting rather spooky. Granted, her only companions were two young women lounging around on the inactive bridge, but they seemed to have forgotten she was there, sitting far to the back of the bridge at the _Spartacus_' version of the Science Two display.

Unlike most of the freelance crew, Ensign Ro was all for espionage. This was her kind of environment. And she sure as hell wasn't going to let Captain Picard down after all he'd done for her. No sir!

Besides, she was still really embarrassed about the disaster she'd inadvertently added to on the bridge of the _Enterprise-D_. She was trained to duck phaser fire. Anyone with sense would. How was she supposed to know that the damn disruptors ricocheted?

Her nose wrinkled even more as she made a rude sound in her own direction. Mercifully, the officer at ops, who was casually chatting to the blond woman idling in the command chair, didn't even look up at the anomalous noise. Neither did her friend.

Shooting a positively corrosive look over her shoulder in their general direction, the Bajoran ensign leaned one elbow on the unresponsive console and fiddled with her dangling earring. She was getting impatient, and glared at the pseudo-project she'd given an _Enterprise_ ensign to dump to the console earlier that day before checking the bridge chronometer for the nth time.

Patience was a virtue, but idleness would get you nowhere. Now who had told her that? Didn't sound like Picard…

Whether it was a virtue or not, her patience was rewarded, finally.

Suddenly, the Engineering console several seats over from her lit up like a firecracker and began making just as much noise. Two heads twisted around to stare at it, and the woman at ops jumped to her feet and started to move towards it. To their credit, the blond in the captain's chair was more efficient than she looked.

"Back at your post!" she snapped as she cut her friend off, stepping in front of her before she got too far away from the console. "Find out what's going on!"

The ops officer offered a hasty, sheepish salute before dropping back into her chair and accessing her console.

"There's been some kind of explosion down in Main Engineering!" she reported. "Systems are in flux all over the board!"

Ro Laren silently thanked the inventors of little gadgets like the one an inventive team of engineers had rigged up to disrupt the display function of _Spartacus_' central computer as she 'pitched in' by jumping to the tactical station.

"Damage reports coming in," she said, rolling mental eyes as she realized that she sounded like Worf. "Or not… Same problem, sir!"

The blond slapped the communications button on the nearest console. When that got her nothing but static, static, and more static, she tried her badge, repeating the same hail. "Bridge to Engineering. Come in, Engineering. What's your status? Damn it! Who's down there?"

The woman at Ops, a tall dark-skinned lady, shrugged desperately. Ro listened critically as their 'commanding officer' swore. She wasn't impressed.

"Order a medical team down there!" the lieutenant commanded.

"Aye, sir!" _Already done it._ Beverly Crusher and her team of merry men were well on their way.

Ro Laren let one hand hover over a certain button. It was just about time, she figured, to raise all hell.

* * *

Similar scenes were occurring all over the ship. No one had really been worried about an influx of wandering officers looking to lend a hand. They also shared a few other things in common: There were quite a lot of former _Enterprise_ officers checking timepieces and there were a few explosions from short-circuited panels.

Also, everyone heard the computer begin warning: _Abandon ship. Abandon ship. All hands, abandon ship. This is not a drill._

Totally bewildered, people of all shapes and sizes began spilling into hallways and hurrying to the nearest turbolift shaft or Jefferies tube, all making a run for the umbilicals tying ship to station.

"Is that everyone?" Dr. Crusher asked, grabbing the sleeve of one of her aides, Alyssa Ogawa.

"Everyone from our section, Doctor," Alyssa replied. Alyssa was part of their ship-rescuing team. She meant everyone from the _Spartacus_. "There may still be people in the Engineering section."

"Right," Crusher said decisively, over the computer's repeated reminder that this was not a drill. _Nope, it's a sneak attack,_ she thought.

Picking people seemingly at random, she weeded her people out from the non- _Enterprise_ officers in the corridor.

"You all come with me," she cried, waving the _Spartacus_ people on. "There may be crewmen stranded down in Main Engineering. That was where the explosion went off. The rest of you, make sure everyone's out." Please?

_Enterprise_ officers and _Spartacus_ people signaled receipt of orders in various different ways before dividing in two, her team gathering around her while the rest fled.

"Right, we can get rid of _that_ now," she said when the door had closed behind the last of them. "Alyssa, cut Engineering off from that damn sedative gas, would you? Thanks. Then head down there yourself and help Geordi get whoever was down there out. The transporters are, I believe, working, unless he blew those up too. You never know with engineers."

A brief spurt of gallows laughter followed that cheap shot.

Clapping her hands together once to get attention, she addressed her team. "I need detailed scans of every deck for life-signs. You should be able to identify our people from their commbadges. Anyone else still on board needs to be gotten off as quickly as possible. Get to it!" She knew that they'd been over this before, but it helped to be giving orders at a more immediate time.

* * *

Groundside, on Utopia Planitia, Mars, itself, there was a squawking of frantic communication between ground station and orbiting platforms.

"Well, what's causing it?" one officer bellowed through the communications link. "That's what you're supposed to be telling me!"

"Someone pull up the roster for the _Spartacus_! It is the _Spartacus_ that's gone mad, isn't it?"

"Sir, they're broadcasting an automatic distress signal! I read life-sign activity in the corridors outside _Spartacus_' spacedock!"

Admiral Ivan Langtry leaned over one of the communications officers. The stressed-out young man made hasty room.

"Cut it loose!" he roared at it. "If it's going to blow, get it away from the shipyards, for crying out loud!"

"Sir, we don't know if it's going to explode…" a rather tinny voice from the other end tried to say.

"Cut it loose anyway! And use the prefix code to order it away at speed!"

"Aye sir!"

"Aye, sir!"

"Transmitting now, Admiral!"

* * *

It might have interested the admiral to know that a second spate of communications was taking place on board the _Spartacus_, albeit of a slightly different tone.

Will Riker's voice came through everyone's commbadges. "All units, check in!" he ordered almost as he materialized on the little ship's transporter pad. Some transporter activity would be expected during an evacuation, so they had figured that using it was safe. Hopefully no one would realize people were beaming _onto_ an evacuated ship until it was too late.

Various reports came back as Captain Jean-Luc Picard and his Number One made for the bridge.

"Main Engineering is secure, sir, mostly because it's too damn filled with smoke for anyone to mess with anything."

"Ro Laren here. I have captured the _entire_ bridge all for myself, _sir_. Oh—damn—extra bridge crew have arrived."

"Tactical has been secured, Commander," Worf's gruff voice confirmed.

"We're cut off on all channels," a lieutenant reported, "but that's OK, because we're the ones holding the scissors."

Someone else reported that the connections between _Spartacus_ and station were being retracted.

Data accounted for the ship's computer being in one piece, and promised to clear the junk code out of the database very quickly.

Dr. Crusher's voice came in last. "All _Spartacus_ personnel have been evacuated, Commander."

"Good work, everyone!" Riker praised them all on an open channel. "Get to your stations and batten down the hatches, we are shipping _out!_"

He was proven very right only a few seconds later, as, seemingly all by itself, _Spartacus_ accelerated out of the giant hanger bay and set itself a course to nowhere.

"Prefix code?" Picard asked in the general direction of Data as they emerged onto the bridge.

"Affirmative," the android officer responded calmly, at his accustomed Ops station.

"They don't have a clue what we're about to do," Riker said with a smirk. "But they'd rather we didn't do it in their backyard."

Picard ignored his Number One's editorializing. "What's our heading at the moment?"

"Away from all regular shipping lanes and intersystem traffic, full impulse." Ro Laren reported from helm. "Wait—we're shifting up to warp one…warp two…warp three."

Sinking into the command chair and closing his hands around the ends of the armrests experimentally, Picard looked over at Riker, who had seated himself as accustomed. "Did we get everyone on board?"

"All sections reported full complement, Captain," Riker confirmed. The bridge, at least, was fully staffed.

"Good. Remind all decks to keep radio silence." The term had endured even when the technology hadn't. "Ensign, get ready to set a course to Farpoint Station. When we're released from station control, lay it in quickly and engage at the highest velocity practical." Ordinarily, he would have called the lower decks and asked Geordi for his recommendation, but having ordered his crew to run silent, he couldn't exactly break his own rule.

There followed a series of highly charged moments. Ro Laren's hands were poised above her keys, already set to input the proper commands. Picard gripped the armrests of his chair hard enough to leave marks in the fabric while behind him, Worf practically radiated tension. Riker laced his hands together, producing a sharp _crack!_ that made everyone jump. Only Data seemed relaxed.

All eyes were on the displays ubiquitous to every console, showing the _Spartacus_' prefix code—a series of five numbers that could allow remote control of the proper starship. In glowing red letters, every console read _7 6 0 3 2_.

The very instant they vanished, Ro Laren jammed her hands down, fingers flying at a speed more typical to Data.

"Course laid in, sir!"

"Engage!" Picard cried, snapping his hand out reflexively and almost leaping from his chair himself with the excitement.

Ro was more than happy to comply. The little rogue _Spartacus_ and its fugitive crew screeched out of the system like the proverbial bat, leaving Utopia Planitia and the forces of Starfleet Command behind them. Hopefully.

"Mr. Worf, any sign of pursuit?" the captain asked after a second that was more than enough to get them well out of Sol system.

The Klingon lieutenant checked his console carefully. "None detected, Captain," he finally rumbled.

To Picard's right, Will Riker let out a sudden deep sigh. "We are never going to get away with this," he told the room. "But oh, man!" He laughed—one short, clipped chuckle. "That was…"

The captain smiled slightly, understanding what the commander was trying to convey. There was still nothing like an adrenaline rush. "Quite."

Shifting tracks almost immediately, Riker sat up and said, "So, New Farpoint Station it is, then?"

Picard nodded grimly. "It's the most likely location to find some kind of lead."

One of Riker's unofficial duties was that of Devil's Advocate. "Sir, we were stuck on New Farpoint for two weeks. You'd think if there were any clues, we'd have found them already."

The captain clenched one hand into a fist and rapped tensely on the corresponding armrest. "We have a ship now, Number One. We can do more now that we are no longer grounded."

It was a very slim chance indeed. But whatever forces watched over the universe were said to look after fools, little girls, and ships named _Enterprise_. Hopefully that extended to the ships' crews, or else they were going to have to fall back on being fools…

…and that did not bode well.

But they were, as Captain Picard had said, no longer grounded. The crew, if rather trimmed down, had a purpose and an opportunity. And that was the important thing, in the end.

* * *

**Author's Note:** About the trilithium stuff: it's either total BS or half-remembered from some _Voyager_ episode. Probably the former, but I'm not sure.Anyway, I'm back from having seen the Broadway version of _The Lion King_ on a serious wow-factor high and wanted to get this out. I realize it would probably be a lot harder to steal a starship out of drydock, but consider this: no one's _expecting_ this flagship crew to violate orders so flagrantly and do something quite as outrageous as _pinch a starship!_ The elements of surprise and outrageousness come in equal usefulness. That's my excuse, anyway. The Romulans will get grumpy if I neglect them for too long, so we're back to them next. They're _not_ having fun, by the way. Well, Liarka is. 


	6. Monkey Wrenches

**Chapter Six: Monkey Wrenches**

**Disclaimer:** I own Varka, Liarka, and their merry men. (Varka was formerly a cat with wings. Liarka's really my large toy leopard, who lives in my room. But don't tell them. I'd never hear the end of it.)

**Author's Note:** Special thanks will now go out to **shadowwolf75**, for giving me the great new title for Chapter Five (Grand Theft Starship), and **SonOfTed**, for being so wonderfully appreciative and keeping up with all my in-jokes. Thanks, both of you!

**ON WITH THE SHOW!**

_In which Liarka discovers bubbly drinks and leads the stowaway hunt, general chaos continues to ensue, and threats are made by multiple parties._

It had, in retrospect, probably been a bad idea to give Liarka command of the teams searching the ship for stowaways. She was the logical choice, as second-in-command; she had the temperament and eagerness for it. Perhaps, it could be said, a little too much eagerness.

The Ferengi, unfortunately, had not been stupid enough to leave the ship's armories fully stocked. Oh, they'd left the hardware of the ship itself intact, because the resale value of a damaged vehicle is lower than that of an intact one. The phasers and photon torpedoes were fully operational. But the hand weapons such as hand phasers and phaser rifles were all gone. No doubt they'd been sold to other bidders beforehand.

Liarka wasn't worried. She preferred Romulan weapons anyway. They fit her hands better and they didn't have a stun setting.

She'd arranged to have several cases of the green-tinted, streamlined guns brought over from their original ship, which had been rather awkwardly wedged into the main shuttlebay. It had been a tight fit, and Liarka had watched her cousin watching the process with some amusement. Varka had been very on edge during the entire procedure, and Liarka wasn't sure whether the incipient damage to the smaller ship or the shuttlebay bothered her cousin more.

Luckily, the pilot had been very good, and the small warbird now rested in the hangar with a minimum of scratches and crumpled metal on its outer hull. There were a few marks on the shuttlebay walls, but those could easily be fixed.

One airlock had been left almost permanently open while supplies and technology were transferred from ship to ship. The armories had been sufficiently restocked before Liarka dropped by with her teams and cleared them out utterly.

Now she pored over a complicated diagram of the ship in the sumptuous lounge listed in the computer as 'Ten-Forward'. According to some records, the Ferengi had plundered that too: the records had contained an impressive list of both synthehol and real drinks. She had ordered one from the replicator, but the replicators had been the most recent thing to malfunction. It had given her a glass of something dark filled with little bubbles, which had produced an alarming amount of foam before fizzling out. Liarka had found it to be an acquired taste, and she was acquiring it quite quickly.

Their saboteur was still at his or her job quite diligently. Little systems had been steadily failing all the time, in random order. Nothing had affected the ship too greatly, because the higher computer functions were twice-encoded. On top of the computer's dogged resistance to any downloading of important files, Varka had ordered the best computer experts to create a second level of encoding. The fact remained that the 'best' programmers had failed to get through the Starfleet security, but she had no other choice. The idea was that if the Romulans couldn't get at the information, they were going to make damn sure that no one else could get at it either.

Liarka checked a bit of information with another PADD, and directed the one displaying the diagram to eliminate another location from the list. She wanted to be down there hunting the stowaway on foot and hand-to-hand, but even Liarka most impulsive had to admit it made more sense to first figure out where the saboteur was _not_ before determining where he _was_.

So far she'd ruled out central locations like the bridge, engineering, and sickbay before going on to the areas not suitable for humanoid life, such as the engines, the trilithium containers, and the nacelles. People could be killed in a heartbeat in many locations on a _Galaxy_-class starship, and had been. It took a lot of power to run a ship of this size efficiently, and with so much energy, the excess had to go somewhere. Even as efficient a ship as the _Enterprise_ had danger zones.

Liarka crossed out another area and highlighted the residential decks. There were all sorts of interesting compartments to be investigated there.

Varka had wanted to just cut off life support to one deck after another, locking the Jeffries tubes and turbolift shafts meanwhile. Her cousin had objected at first. She wanted whoever was still on board alive, whereas Varka would be perfectly happy to settle for him or her dead and out of the way. They had agreed that they'd fall back on that plan if all else failed.

After some consideration, Liarka realized that a compromise of the two would be most effective. However much she would have enjoyed chasing their stowaway around the ship with gun and knife, she conceded that they really needed the ship working if they were to get back to home space safely.

So this was the way it was going to be: They would, indeed, cut off two decks at a time, steadily 'flipping' the dead-zones downward. In other words, Deck One would be isolated and filled with sedative gas as the same thing happened to Deck Two. Then Deck Two would remain gassed while Deck Three shut down. Then Deck Two would go back into operation, and so on.

It would take awhile, as there were forty-two decks and the gas took time to fill the level and take effect, but it would work, theoretically. As each deck was cleared of the gas, Liarka and her teams would go in and beat the bushes. If they didn't find the saboteur, presumably lying out cold on the floor somewhere, the process would continue. Simple.

To this end, what centurions they could spare from keeping the ship running despite the sabotage had been assigned to clear the emergency supplies of anything resembling gas masks or weapons. In twos, they had emptied bulkhead drawers and confiscated any loose tools that had potential to become weapons. Presumably, the stowaway had already amassed sufficient weapons, but it was only sensible to not supply him or her with any more.

Liarka Ki'riin looked up from her array of PADDs when someone stepped between her and the vast windows, only noticing because the reflections of warping stars were suddenly blotted out from the condensing side of her half-empty glass. She looked up confrontationally, one hand automatically forming a fist with which to threaten whoever was bothering her.

One glance was enough to make her relax her hand, and she nodded to her cousin and commander as she sat down unasked. Varka folded her hands on the table before her, resting them between two PADDs, and gave her a steady, if somewhat pensive, stare.

"What?" she said, lowering her voice despite the fact that no one else was present. "Do you need me for something?"

Varka shook her head. "Tell me," the older cousin asked, "what are your intentions with regard to whoever is still on board?"

This was not a question Liarka had been expecting. She had not, in fact, formed any plans per se. "Extract whatever information is needed from him," she made up on the spur of the moment.

Varka nodded, as if this was no more than what she'd been expecting. "What are you drinking?" she queried, changing the subject abruptly.

The subcommander refused to be blindsided. "I don't know. It's a Terran drink."

"It has bubbles in it."

"Yes, it does. Try some?" Liarka offered her cousin the glass. After a brief hesitant moment, Varka accepted it and took a cautious sip. She put it down very quickly.

"Interesting," she declared it, and didn't inquire further.

Liarka shoved her PADDs into a heap and copied her commander's posture, shooting a look straight into her eyes. "What?" she asked again. "You didn't track me down just to find out what I was drinking. What's bothering you?"

At first, Varka did not reply. Instead, she examined a PADD, looked at the stars, and sampled Liarka's drink again, making less of a face this time. This fidgeting, although construed to give her more time to think, instead convinced Liarka utterly that her cousin was nervous about something.

Liarka stared back, refusing to give ground.

Finally, after a few more cautious glances around the room, and a seemingly reflexive sweep of her hand underneath the table lest anyone be so crass as to plant a detectable bug, she said in a low tone, "I am concerned about the loyalty of this crew."

"What? Commander, I checked the backgrounds of everyone on this ship personally while we were waiting for Ransk to get his ass moving. Half of them have served with one or both of us for years."

This failed to satisfy Varka. "We have a crew of miscreants and unstable geniuses, Liarka. Ancestors' gods know which one you, for example, fit in as."

Liarka suppressed a thoroughly childish urge to kick her cousin under the table, drowning it in bubbly Earth drink. The bubbles re-formed when she left it alone for a little while.

The commander refused to let up. "You know as well as I do that records can be faked as easily as snapping your fingers." Liarka had never learned to do this, but refrained from pointing this out. "Don't tell me you _personally_ and completely investigated the backgrounds of two hundred Romulan soldiers. Half of them have been living under false identities for the last decade or more, and succeeded in not getting caught by the Federation or the Klingons! The chances of _you_ finding a flaw in a cover story in such a short space of time are low."

"So what?" Liarka hissed. Her elder cousin's favor had hauled her out of trouble more than once. She needed her support, and this lack of trust was galling. "Worried about spies? Of course there are spies! There are always spies—at least three from the Tal Shiar that I know of."

The commander swept for recording devices again visually before mouthing three names. _Archias, Tullius, Mir'kan?_ "Same ones?" she asked aloud.

One of Liarka's eyebrows had gone up. "I didn't know about" _Tullius_. "But you missed" _Naso_.

Varka wasn't pleased. "I see," she said. "I don't want any of them on the same shifts from now on." _Four!_ she gestured, raising four fingers, then flicked them all out in a very clear _Dammit!_

With a shrug, the subcommander replied, "I'll try. That's going to take some rearranging, you realize, especially if you don't want them knowing that you know."

She was immediately pinned by a frosty look. "Do it."

Liarka managed to sigh and salute in the same motion. "Yes, Commander."

"Also," Varka added aloud as she rose, "I need you to talk to the computer programmers. They've run out of time to get through that code."

"Commander, as much as it pains me to say it, threats won't break a code. You can't threaten a computer. Computers can't _think_, not really. It's not like the _Enterprise_ computer will consent to being bullied…although it does sound damn smug."

"I don't want them threatened. Throw the two most incompetent in separate brigs, and split the rest up. I want a program that will allow me to monitor Engineering, Sickbay, the computer core, Deflector Control…use your imagination. Give each of them one or two locations and make threats about what happens if they talk. If it works out, I'll allow the best one to patent it when we get back."

"That I _can_ do. Sir." Liarka didn't like the computer people. They had been even smugger than that damn shipboard computer ever since she'd somehow commanded said computer to disprove the existence of the universe—and it had.

"Oh, and don't let them call it Tantulus," Varka added on her way out. "That's the last thing we need."

'Tantulus' was somewhat of a myth in the Romulan Star Empire. According to legend, a super-paranoid computer programmer had installed miniature visual recorders all over his ship, which was called the _Tantulus_. Driven to new heights of suspicion by not being able to understand what his crewmates were saying due to the poor quality of the primitive recording, which didn't have sound, he, or sometimes she, had reputedly gone on a lower-decks killing spree, which ended only after he or she assassinated the last two people on board before attacking the main viewscreen and a mirror with a disruptor.

Like so many space legends, no one had survived to pass on the tale being told. Liarka grinned sarcastically at the cynical joke. Knowing the programmers, they would. She'd warn them about it after the fact.

Stacking her assortment of PADDs, Liarka finished off her drink and tossed it behind the bar, where it failed to shatter. Muttering about unbreakable replicated glasses, she headed off to Tactical Control, which she'd converted into hunters' HQ, to drop the plans on some lackadaisical centurion whom she thought needed something to do.

**

* * *

**

Standing in the middle of a wrecked living compartment, Liarka braced her knife-wielding hand on one hip and sighed. This had not been going well.

The _Enterprise_ could comfortably accommodate a complement of over a thousand humanoids, and thrice that could be crammed in without noticeable overloading. There was a lot of space, and it all needed investigating by hand.

She'd thought, in the beginning, that the search would be mostly accomplished using tricorders, which were more accurate than the malfunctioning computer, which had pettishly refused to allow them access to internal sensors two hours ago.

Liarka had thought that that was a break. Presumably, if the sensors shut down when they hit deck six, then they must have been getting close. She had held high hopes for finding the saboteur then, guessing that he or she had panicked and overridden the sensors.

But no. No one on deck six. They hadn't found anything or anyone in the seven hours, going on eight, it had taken them to get this far. In fact, just after the internal sensors went down, insult had been added to injury by two jittery centurions backing into each other during a search of a robotics lab, and shooting at each other in surprise.

They'd made a very nice mess of the lab, and had been locked in to clean up while the rest of Liarka's squadron proceeded on.

The subcommander barely suppressed a most unprofessional whimper as her people reported the deck thoroughly swept, only a few minutes after the report had come down from the bridge that the next deck, deck twelve, was currently inhabitable again.

"Understood, bridge," Liarka griped. "Proceeding to deck twelve."

She tapped the intercom open and hailed the beating-the-bushes team. "Centurions, report to turboshafts 3, 5, 6, 14, and 19. Squad leaders confirm full complement and proceed to deck twelve on my order."

Various confirmations trickled back over the open channel, and Liarka indulged herself in two minutes of leaning back on a previously overturned chair and closing her eyes, counting off the seconds in order not to let her miniature break extend too long.

She'd hoped it wouldn't take this long, and the stress was getting to her.

"Bridge, this is Ki'riin," she said as a sudden thought struck her.

"Bridge here. What?" Varka replied from the command center.

A spurt of irritation went through her at the sound of her cousin's voice. She could just see her lounging in that overly stuffed center chair, and she _hated_ it. Liarka knew she was unfit for command, but the jealousy was getting on her nerves regardless.

"Prepare replacement teams for two-fifths of the current delegation," she ordered, "to be exchanged upon completion of the next deck."

Up on the bridge, Varka considered the request. "Acknowledged," she responded finally. "Bridge out."

When the channel had closed again, Liarka sighed and left the ransacked compartment, joining the nearest team at shaft 19. She led the other Romulans into the crowded lift and gave the order.

Only a few seconds later, five turbolift doors snapped open at once, and armed soldiers spilled out of it onto Deck Twelve.

"You four, go check out sickbay," Liarka ordered, pointing at four random centurions with her rifle. They obeyed at top speed, possibly mostly to get away from the other end of the weapon. The rest of you spread out. Continue to check in with the bridge as each section is checked off.

"Yes, subcommander," the remaining Romulans saluted, and moved off, leaving Liarka with an uncertain feeling of foreboding.

Checking the power level on her disruptor, she made a mental note to requisition another one or two along with the replacement personnel. Having shot at nothing for the last too many hours, the weapon was at full charge, but it didn't hurt to have plenty of firepower.

Liarka blinked abruptly. Sweat was being funneled right into her eyes, and she shifted her disruptor to her good hand to scrub at them, irritated. She didn't think she'd been that stressed. To her intense annoyance, her reddish bangs were plastered to her forehead, and there were thin damp lines already trickling down the back of her neck.

This was ridiculous! And why was it so hot down here all of a sudden?

Fanning at her face with her spare hand, Liarka realized that the temperature was significantly higher than it had been on Deck Eleven. If she was right, it was getting warmer with every second.

This was not good.

"Ki'riin to bridge," Liarka hailed. "Turn down the heat down here!"

She was so angry, it took her a few seconds to realize that the channel hadn't opened, and she was snapping at dead air.

Snapping imaginative curses that probably heated the air even more when her hails failed again, she tried the nearest wall panel, calling the bridge, Engineering, and the rest of her team by group and by as many names as she could remember. She got no response from any of them.

Resorting to basic means, she filled her lungs and yelled down the corridors in either direction. Under normal circumstances, a starship corridor didn't echo, but she could have sworn she heard the sound of her own voice being cast mockingly back at her no matter how many times she tried.

"This," she pronounced, "is stupid." With that ringing declaration, she turned on her heel and went back to the turbolift she'd emerged from not long ago.

To her fury, it wouldn't open. She punched it. It still refused to open.

Recovering from a brief temper tantrum, she became aware of a chattering noise, quite faint and only on the edges of her hearing. Cocking her head to one side, she pushed back red hair again and listened carefully. It sounded a lot like an open comm channel, but she couldn't understand a word that was being transmitted.

Liarka started to get slightly nervous. She suddenly realized that she was completely alone, and remembered Varka's worries about instability among the crew.

She considered yelling a few more times, then realized that she probably did not want to attract attention…

After a few seconds, in which the static died away and nothing happened, Liarka kicked herself metaphorically in the rear end for being a coward. Taking a tighter grip on the hilt of her disruptor, and reminding herself that she in charge of this operation, she left the retreat of the turbolift door (still unresponsive) to find the rest of the group.

It was still damn hot, though, and the pressure was increasing. Deck Twelve was completely cut off from the rest of the ship, air ducts and all. True to the laws of chemistry and physics, the hot air was expanding. The pressure beat on Liarka's eardrums and made her feel more and more stressed out. She found herself breathing deeply.

Liarka's worries were only added to when the phantom comm traffic began again. This time, it was louder, but she could still make out no words. Voices, however, were becoming increasingly clear, and one thing was certain: she recognized none of them. Well, two things, and this second just as concerning: none of the voices had a Romulan accent.

_Found them!_ Liarka thought, meaning the stowaways, suddenly plural in her mind, with a surge of relief. At last they could end this wild goose chase!

She charged around the corridor, and had just enough time to see utterly nobody before that was replaced with utter nothing—this nothing extending to walls, floor, and the nose on her face.

With some effort, Liarka stifled her gasp. The dark took her by surprise. Nothing was working; no light was being shed from anything. Even the tracking lights in the floor, supposed to come on in the event of just such a power loss, had totally failed, even with their independent power source. The panels in the walls were gone.

Once her eyes had adjusted, which is to say she was no longer seeing sparks due to the abrupt loss of light, Liarka realized that there was still one source of light—the display on her rifle.

Liarka had never been so grateful for a disruptor.

_That does it_! Liarka thought, and then said it aloud for the sake of hearing the sound of her voice. "That does it! This ends now!"

She brandished her disruptor aggressively and walked into the wall twice (the _same_ wall, to add insult to injury) before managing to get her free hand on the wall and make her way down the corridor.

It seemed, to Liarka, that it was a very long time before anything happened, but that may be because she was used to keeping time by the rhythm of her breaths, and her breathing was currently very fast and shallow due to the fear and the heavy pressure. She hated to admit it, but she was quite frightened. She no longer felt in control of this situation. Someone else was calling the shots, and she didn't want to be the one _being_ shot if at all possible.

She heard, over the sound of her own panicked breaths, a boot scrape against the floor, and reflexively, she turned and shot in the general direction of the sound. She missed, blazing a glowing line across her retinas and a deep hole in the wall. Someone screamed, and shot back at her. He, too, for the voice had been male, missed, for Liarka had ducked away from her starting point; a basic move after years of being shot at. He was not so bright or so lucky, for Liarka focused on the origin of the beam and drilled him hard.

Phosphorescent trails crisscrossing her eyes, and little sparks dancing in her head, Liarka stumbled to her feet, and in the process, stepped on the other man's body. Panicked by the feel of limp flesh beneath her boots, she tripped up again, and regaining her footing after a few seconds of spider-like scurrying, fled down the corridor, making quite a lot of noise as she crashed into the walls.

All around Deck Twelve, similar scenes were taking place. Tense due to a combination of the extended search, the heat, the pressure, and the phantom comm traffic, which had been transmitted throughout the deck, the centurions were sent over the edge by the unexpected stifling darkness.

On top of that, some people were locked into suddenly claustrophobic, threatening compartments while others were loose in unfamiliar corridors. A Federation ship felt essentially wrong to most Romulans; it was something to do with the lighting and the smell of the air, or possibly the carpet and the shape of the corridors. Perhaps the roof was a centimeter too low. It's surprising how little things can affect otherwise brave people.

In any case, it worked against them. Fear gripped the soldiers, which is not a good thing when everyone is holding guns.

Or possibly it was a good thing. It all depends on your point of view. It made the Romulans very unhappy. It made one person insufferably pleased with the current state of affairs.

Ten minutes and a lot of damage to the ship and personnel later, someone on the bridge finally noticed that no one had reported in and the computers were being fed a loop, and he raised the alarm. It took another few minutes to break through the locks on Environmental Control and the turbolift doors, but when that had been achieved, Varka was informed of the disaster from a safe distance.

"Commander," gasped Liarka from sickbay, where she had ended up. She sounded quite relieved to see a familiar face, even if it was a face that was about to chew her out. Behind her, her cousin could see only a slice of the damage done by clumsiness and disruptors, but it was enough to make her very, very mad. "What the hell happened?"

Varka ignored the question and fired back one of her own. "Report!"

Liarka shook her head as if avoiding bugs. "The heat went up, the lights went off."

"And you all panicked!" Varka finished for her in a roar. "You useless excuse for…" This went on for quite a while, and Liarka flinched at every sizzling epithet. It wasn't, technically, her fault, but the misbehavior of her people would be pinned right on her, probably with something sharp, heavy, and quite possibly serrated.

"…And I'd bet the entire Fire Falls you didn't even find who did it!" Varka wound up, pausing to inhale before she passed out. Before she could keep going, Liarka jumped in.

"This couldn't be done from Deck Twelve!" she protested vehemently. "Why don't you ask whoever was in Environmental Control!?"

"No one was IN Environmental Control, you idiot!" Varka yelled.

"WELL THERE YOU GO! Did anyone even look?!!"

_"You've got all the spare crew, not to mention all the guns! HALF-WITTED F'VAI!"_

This was turning infantile, and Varka knew it. They'd had similar arguments as preteens. It didn't look very good to be bawling insults at your second in command on the main viewscreen in front of a large number of crewmen, and Varka realized that too. But she was really angry.

"Since when," Liarka howled, "do we need guns to take on one human?" and knew instantly she'd made a huge error.

Varka let her know it, too, at volume. "Then why the hell do you have disruptors, subcommander?! Maybe I should have taken them all away before you decided to turn _my ship_ into scrap metal and loose gas!"

Liarka took a deep breath to retaliate, but was cut off by the beeping of a frantic panel: the bridge's tactical console. The two enraged women looked at it, Varka turning half around and Liarka sitting back on the nearest chair in sickbay, both rather nonplussed at being interrupted in full cry.

"Sir," the centurion at that station said tentatively, worried not unreasonably about getting his head all but bitten off, "there's a proximity alarm been triggered off our port bow."

"What?" Varka said. "Put it on screen."

"HEY!" Liarka yelped, but she vanished in favor of a starscape in which a tiny dot pulsed in the center of.

"What is it?" Varka asked.

"Unknown as yet, sir," the centurion mumbled.

"Find out!"

"Yes sir."

Varka sat down in the command chair and fumed at Liarka, mystery ships, people who interrupted her, and idiots in general.

A few minutes later, by the time she'd worked herself into a real mood and a half, the centurion at tactical had come up with a general identification. "Readings roughly indicate a Breen ship, Commander."

Varka said a very bad word. "What are they doing?" she asked rhetorically. "They usually stay away from Romulan ships."

"They have often attacked _Federation_ ships," Tactical reminded her gently, trying not to make a point of her lapse.

"Damn." Varka folded her hands under her chin and leaned on them. "Keep on course. To their sensors, we're a Starfleet ship. Let's act like one."

"They've vanished from our sensors, sir," Tactical reported.

"Cloaking device?"

"I believe so."

"Scan for them on the usual Romulan frequencies," Varka ordered. "Then try the Klingon ones, however out of date they may be."

"Scanning," the centurion replied, accompanied by the soft sound of buttons being pressed and data being input and output.

About a minute later, the report came back. "No signal, sir."

Varka sighed very quietly. It was worth a try.

"Should we transmit a signal, Commander?" the officer at the Ops position asked.

"Why?" Varka asked sarcastically. "So they'll see we're Romulans on a Federation ship, and this will magically convince them they shouldn't attack us?"

"No sir," the man responded, deciding wisely to ignore the sarcasm. "There is a message prepared informing anyone listening that our comm system is down."

That sounded like a stupid idea to Varka, but she vaguely recalled the possibility of suggesting that herself, so she decided against saying so. "No. Ignore them."

This would have been a good idea, except the Breen had other ideas.

"Commander, they are hailing us!"

"Audio only. Accept it, but no return signal," Varka ordered.

"On audio…now."

_"Federation Starship_ U.S.S. Enterprise," a gravelly voice said, crackling with static. _"Lower your shields and prepare for boarding party."_

Varka thought quickly. "Open an audio channel," she commanded. "Don't let them see us."

She waited for a moment before she spoke again. "Breen vessel," she snapped. "You will not board this ship. You will take no hostile action against the _Enterprise_. If you attempt to do so…" she paused for effect. "We will be forced to take actions of our own," she completed.

The Breen thought about this. _"Are we addressing the captain of_ U.S.S. Enterprise?" they asked.

Damn. Everyone knew who the captain of the _Enterprise_ was, unless they'd spent their lives under some rock. When subtlety fails, Varka had always believed, go for gall.

"No," she snapped. "He's busy." In the backwards sort of way, that was the truth. Varka didn't know it, but at that exact moment, Jean-Luc Picard was very busy. "You're not worth his time. We have more important things to do than listen to threats. Leave us alone."

The centurion cut the channel.

"Shields up!" Varka snapped. "Charge phasers."

The Breen ship chewed that over, and realized they'd been insulted. They probably also realized that Varka's little speech was not your typical Starfleet reaction, and they definitely noticed the suddenly aggressive behavior of the huge Galaxy-class starship.

In any case, a patch of space suddenly rippled, and the little Breen ship opened fire at close range. The _Enterprise_ rocked, but the shields held…for the moment.

"Back us away from them!" Varka shot at the helm, sinking back into her chair before she got knocked over. "Don't let them get in another blast!"

"Commander," Ops said gingerly, "that first shot disrupted our shields." Before Varka could rage at him for saying something so stupid, he added, "It also disrupted our sensor blanket. I'm trying to reload it, but they'll be getting some very strange readings over there."

It didn't take Varka very long to figure out what he was saying. Part of the time the Breen would be detecting a human-mix crew. The rest they would be able to discover that the _Enterprise_ was actually crewed by a handful of Romulans.

Now she had only one decision. No one could know that the Romulans had the _U.S.S. Enterprise_—not yet. Certainly not this early.

Varka dug her nails into the plush armrests of the command chair, a snarl pulling her lips back from her teeth and a soft hiss escaping her. For a second she looked unaccountably feral.

"Destroy them," she ordered coldly. "Immediately."

* * *

She wasn't happy about the damage to Deck Twelve, of course. That was personally offensive, but it was minor in comparison to the purely delightful effect on the Romulans. She could sense the fear running through them all now. It was strongest in the ones that had been exposed to the heat and the dark and the pressure, but it was spreading to the ones who heard about it. No one knew what or who had caused it. No one but her.

It had been so easy, and so much fun. She didn't have much fun, but now she was getting an unlooked-for opportunity.

The nanites were doing their job quite well. Not all of their effect had been felt yet. Some of their projects had yet to take effect; some were still in the making.

She'd have to remember about the effects of changes in the environment. Perhaps it wouldn't be as noticeable next time. (She'd remember, of course, she remembered everything.)

She checked on the nanites; quite a lot of them were chewing through Engineering equipment. She directed them away from the warp core. She didn't want the core to explode. That, at least, needed to stay intact.

Thinking for a split second, she gave them new orders, redirecting them to more interesting ideas she'd had recently. She warned them to stay away from the computer core. She would attend to that personally.

That reminded her, and she delved into the memory contained within the core while keeping part of her attention on the battle beginning with the Breen. It had been easy, too, to cause a ripple in the sensor screen. The Breen wouldn't have a clue who they were facing.

It seemed, from her perspective, that fear was very powerful. More powerful than she'd expected. What else, she wondered, could she do to scare the Romulans?

If the dark was so fearsome, she wondered, well, what about light?

She wondered…

* * *

**Note:** Happy Easter to everyone who will appreciate the wish!

**Author's Regular End-of-Chapter Note: **Ok, I lied a bit last chapter: _no one's_ having fun—except our saboteur, and ME! Writing that fight between Varka and Liarka was an _insane_ amount of fun. So was the scene where all the lights go off. Varka's belief about subtlety versus gall parallels one of my favorite sayings: _If you can't stop 'em with science…baffle 'em with bull!_ On a totally unrelated subject, I'm going to get up on my soapbox (imaginary) and recommend to sci-fi and action fans the most recent 'Doctor Who' series. I was watching it earlier with mom and little bro; that's probably why I have two hours and counting of writing energy. It is _very_ well done! The new 'Doctor Who' is as different from the originals as rank and file TOS to the best of TNG/DS9. Shameless plug there, but they really are incredibly good.

**Next Chapter: **In which a burning question is partly answered: how the heck do you steal the _Enterprise_ in the first place? Good question. I like that question. Um… Next question!


	7. Battlefield Farpoint

**Chapter Seven: Battlefield Farpoint**

**Disclaimer: **In this chapter, all by itself, I do not own: Farpoint Station, shuttlecrafts, binoculars, or any Ferengi in the slightest. I do own copies of Star Trek V: The Final Frontier, Gustav Holst's _The Planets_ symphony (my new favorite writing music), and the _Voyager_ book 'Echoes'—a reward of an ambiguous nature to anyone who can spot the reference to that book in this chapter. I own the Referazians fair and square.

**Author's Note:** Le'letha apologizes in advance. She refuses to say what she apologizes for on account of being too busy giggling insanely about obeying the laws of the universe.

**ON WITH THE SHOW!**

_In which there is an argument, a fight, and overall a great deal of phaser fire_.

On board the _Shuttlecraft Kotani_, Lt. Worf fingered his phaser rifle edgily and scanned the console in front of him, leaning over the shoulder of the wiry ensign piloting the little craft. To her credit, she neither glanced backward nor looked intimidated by his presence hovering right behind her, continuing to follow the assigned course leading them down to New Farpoint Station.

The readings from the external sensors had gotten worse and worse as they descended through the atmosphere. Not even the most cautious of peacemakers could deny hostile action now; they'd even had it confirmed from the surface. No doubt Groppler Zorn was still huddling in a corner somewhere.

Worf felt quite vindicated. He'd been right, again. He'd known all along it had been the work of antagonistic forces.

Abruptly, the shuttlecraft shook, jouncing the ten inhabitants of the cockpit around roughly. Packed in closely, they did not bounce as much as they would have ordinarily.

"What was that?" Worf rumbled, realizing that it was a stupid question even as he voiced it.

"Unknown, sir," the ensign responded. "The interference is blocking our navigational sensors, but we're essentially going in a straight line now. Unless it's changed frequencies to disrupt our engines, it might have just been air turbulence."

Worf scowled at the cloud cover, thick against the transparent aluminum windows. It was blocking all possible view of the objective and the other shuttlecrafts. If they were having similar problems, even those approaching from different angles, then that would confirm that the disruption had expanded to engines. And that was all set to make the mission very difficult. A jamming device that powerful and with such a range over both space and different types of equipment was a weapon that should not, he believed firmly, be in the hands of anyone.

Dammit, he wished he could communicate with the other shuttlecrafts!

From the point of view of a ground observer, watching the approach of the shuttlecraft fleet would require three hundred and sixty degree vision in three dimensions. Traveling at different speeds, predetermined against the lack of reliable communications, part of the fleet had traveled at full impulse around the Farpoint area, sweeping around to attack from the north, while other squadrons had departed at different times to approach from other directions. A pair of shuttlecraft was hovering directly above Farpoint at 50,000 feet.

The entire operation had been time-coordinated too, and any one shuttlecraft arriving a little late could allow a hole in the three dimensional perimeter. The small ships waiting at a great distance from the station were practically invisible from the ground…

…except, of course, if you were expecting them, had been warned, and had earlier laid in a goodly supply of the latest model of binoculars.

New Farpoint Station had been designed and built to resemble the original in shape if not construction materials. It was still the only building of note within hundreds of miles, the Bandi being only recently open to the idea of interaction with other worlds and the majority still waiting on their personal decision. Farpoint was a place, they thought, for the fringes of the too-liberal personalities not yet odd enough to be locked up.

The spire in the center of the complex remained, reaching up to a perilous height like a modern Tower of Babel. The buildings making up the rest of the station were surrounded by a perimeter, not tall or imposing enough to be called a wall, which clearly defined the boundary between 'outpost' and 'outback'. One of the Starfleet operatives assigned to the station had taken one look at it from a distance and started laughing, waving it off as harking back to a literary work none of the Bandi had ever heard of.

The majority of the less official functions, such as quarters for those on shore leave or stationed landside, recreational facilities, or the marketplace that had been so popular in Farpoint Mark One. The offices and administration were housed in the spire. It was built of reddish-brown metal that did nothing to contrast with the backdrop, except for the very top floor of the central spike, which was walled in by only forcefields and provided an incredible view in all directions for quite some distance.

It was not high enough to allow a view of anything but empty waste, as there was nothing else but red rocks and desert landscape, a view at once almost empty and filled with stone and scant shrubs. Farpoint was isolated. Cut off. Even its name referred more to its terrestrial location than its galactic position.

In the highest room in the tower, designed as an observatory for those not invited or inclined to see the stars from the much higher vantage point of a starship lounge, DaiMon Ransk watched, through his favorite binoculars, the crafts maneuver into position, a snaggle-toothed grin spreading across his face from ear to ear. It lasted only a second, and was wiped away as he used the binoculars to get the attention of his latest personal aide.

"Hey! You better tell me you're sure that this forcefield's got a one-way view. I don't want to be up here waving for all to see when those ships come crashin' down."

The other Ferengi's mind desperately spun as he tried to figure out whether this meant the boss wanted to be _told_ that it was one-way no matter what, or actually wanted the truth. He decided to compromise.

"Completely secure, sir!" Fetiuk yelped, saluting. He used the motion to take a quiet step away, hopefully out of the way of those damn binoculars. They were plated in latinum, and were therefore exceedingly hard. Because they were the nearest thing to hand, the boss had taken to smacking him with them whenever he was trying to get his aide's attention. There was a bruise rapidly growing on his upper arm, and another on his head where he hadn't ducked fast enough.

"It had better be," Ransk grumbled in his deep voice. He put the binoculars to his eyes again, and immediately his good mood returned. "Heh-heh…just look at them bobbing around up there. That device has some real kick to it, huh? Those schematics are gonna be worth a fortune!"

"Um…we don't actually have the plans, DaiMon," the unfortunate aide pointed out, taking another step backwards. A second later he all but scuttled across the room, stopping just short of brushing the forcefield lest the sparks be detectable from up above and to avoid the nasty shock that discouraged stargazers from leaning against the holographic walls. He kept a careful eye on the binoculars. Ransk was this close to throwing them at him.

"Why not?" the DaiMon demanded at top volume. It boomed out through the room, enough so that Fetiuk half-imagined it to be audible in the shuttlecrafts.

"Well, you see, we weren't given the plans, and the Syndicate kinda objected to the guys who tried to steal them," Fetiuk pointed out.

"So take the damn thing apart! That should tell even an imbecile like yourself how it works!"

Feeling as if he was about to be accused of insulting his superior's intelligence, Fetiuk was nevertheless obliged to say, "That would stop it from working, sir, and then the _Enterprise_ would be able to scan us, beam us all into the brig, and talk to Starfleet Command, not to mention the shuttlecraft could do all that as well."

Ransk realized that his aide had a point, resorted to ignoring the existence of the conversation of the last few minutes, and returned to scanning the shuttle-filled skies.

* * *

After the Paradise City debacle in 2287, Starfleet had devoted some time to training their cadets in infantry strategy in the hopes of averting any such incident should something similar happen again. Thanks to that idea, the Starfleet force currently hovering over and around Farpoint Station completely neglected to land at a cautious distance and walk into an ambush.

Instead, half of them flew into one, which isn't much better.

At a prearranged time, five of the eleven shuttlecraft that had left the _Enterprise_ engaged their engines and programmed a descent pattern that would land them in courtyards and marketplaces. The other six covered them from above, each airborne shuttle shadowing one away team and the extra reconnoitering the surrounding area.

The away teams spread out, armed with phaser rifles. Visually, they scanned their surroundings for any sign of hostile forces, keeping their weapons at the ready. Upon experimentation, handheld tricorders were proven to be of limited use.

"Commander, my tricorder's receiving information within a twenty-meter radius," Lt. Savan reported to Commander Riker, who was leading one of the away parties in accordance with his role at first officer.

"Good. That should give us some warning," Riker mused tensely. "And just what is your tricorder picking up, Lieutenant? Any life signs?"

Savan picked at his display for a few seconds. "No sir. Just us."

"Now, I wonder," Riker said to no one. "Mister, where are your readings weakest?"

The lieutenant looked up at him from a diminutive height of four and a half feet. "Sir?" he asked, distinctly puzzled.

Squinting up at their designated shuttlecraft, which blinked its running lights at them in a reassuring way, the commander responded, "This interference is making our job very difficult, ladies and gentlemen. If we can find where it is, we can take it out, and then we can all go home and have dinner."

"Sounds like a plan to me," another lieutenant agreed.

"So," Riker resumed, ignoring the interruption, "Mr. Savan, our heading, please."

Spinning in a slow circle with tricorder outstretched, Savan stopped, turned back a little way, and readjusted the settings again. "Um. Right. That way."

"Everyone, stay alert," Riker commanded. "We can't depend on just sensor readings. Mr. Savan, take your tricorder on point. Phasers on stun." No sound from the rifles accompanied this last order. The stun setting had been standard procedure since before the first days of the Federation. In fact, if any one had changed his or her setting, Riker would have had to put them on report for not already having set their phaser rifle to stun.

The detachment crept forward, leaving one man sealed within the shuttlecraft, _Rusch_, in order to prevent any hostile force stealing around and making off with the shuttle. That had happened more than once in Starfleet history.

Looking around as his squad followed Savan's increasingly vague directions, Riker couldn't suppress a shiver. The marketplace was so…empty. His memories of Farpoint ranged from bustling profitable metropolis all the way through wasteland being pelted by lighting from on high, but this was something else. He felt as if any second now tumbleweed would blow past and a wind would start howling like in one of those holodeck programs Deanna had had such fun playing with Alexander recently.

Also like those programs, there was a preponderance of dust, which no one appreciated. Several people coughed as a gust of wind stirred up the dry dirt, already agitated by their feet. The dust caked the bright booths, now obscured and faded along with their wares, which lay open for all to see. Riker found that most sinister of all. It implied an evacuation ordered so suddenly that everyone had dropped what they were holding and immediately left.

He wasn't the only person rather spooked. From various positions around him, he could hear snippets of muted conversation.

"Looks like Pompeii, this—all the dust!"

"You know how in the twentieth century, humans used to believe aliens would swoop down out of the skies and steal people? What would they have said to this?"

"No, it's Ghitikana for sure. All the people gone. Killed in a single night."

"Don't be stupid," the Pompeii voter shot back from behind Riker's back. "The Ghitikanii weren't killed. They beamed the whole population to another planet. It just took the Federation two decades to find them."

"It's very tidy, though," Riker mused aloud. "For an invaded station…apart from the grime, it's very clean, this place."

"Sir?" several people said nervously, in fear that they would be reprimanded for chatting on duty.

"It's nothing. Minds on the job, please, all."

"Yes sir," seven people said. Savan kept his eyes on his tricorder, making frustrated-sounding clicking noises that Riker would have dislocated his tongue trying to copy.

Riker attempted to restore some order to the proceedings, waving a halt before stepping up through the group to look down…and down…and down…at Savan. "Lieutenant, report."

"My tricorder's failing, sir," the little Referazian replied, pale blue face flushing a royal blue that, in contrast with his bright gold shirt, made him look somewhat green. His frustration added the snarls and clicks inherent to his native language into his pronunciation of Federation Standard, making the word 'tricorder' come out in a clatter of sound resembling an armload of metal being tossed down a turboshaft one little piece at a time.

Deliberate? Riker wondered, but refrained from inquiring.

"What was the last reading you got, Lieutenant?" the first officer asked, scanning the horizon. A shadow passed over him and he flinched in reflexive caution, hoisting his phaser rifle and bringing it to bear all before realizing that it was just the shuttlecraft assigned to shadow them. _Blaidd-Drwg_ had seen them stop and was approaching to check on them.

Resting the phaser rifle with its nose against the ground and the grip against one hip, Commander Riker raised both arms above his head and waved them repeatedly, signaling all clear in a very time-honored tradition until the shuttle resumed its assigned height.

"Uncertain, sir," Savan answered, not even glancing up at the shuttlecraft beyond his initial look. "It could have been life-signs…that way." He pointed slightly off to the left askew from the direction they had been walking in. "But I can't tell you if it was Bandi or alien or even wild beast. Sorry, Commander."

Riker scowled. "I don't like that. Ready phasers. On my signal."

Looking around, he sighted an empty marketplace stall, and took a slight detour to climb onto its countertop, stepping between bolts of dust-encrusted fabric carefully. Keeping behind the edge of the booth, he cautiously glanced around the edge in an attempt to see a little further ahead.

A directed-energy shot nearly took his head off, and he jerked it back just in time. The wall behind him collapsed with a great creaking and wailing from the damaged wood, and Riker had to move quickly to avoid being brought down with it, rolling on one shoulder to break the fall.

"Take cover! Return fire!" Riker shouted from the floor where he had ended up, and instantly the air was alive with glowing beams of highly charged energy. While his team was so occupied, the first officer extracted himself from curtains and fabric and thumped his right shoulder in hopes of getting rid of the dislocated feeling he'd gotten when he'd fallen.

Grabbing his phaser rifle, he scrambled for the wreckage of the stall he'd brought down. He propped his rifle on it, aiming over the fallen wood, and opened fire.

* * *

Due to the subspace interference, the _Enterprise_ remained mostly unaware of the chaos on the planet below. It was proving equally annoying for those who had remained on board ship.

Deanna Troi watched patiently as Captain Picard paced the deck of the command well, striding from one ramp to the other before taking up a position between the two forward consoles. He stared broodingly down at the planet before returning to movement, wandering up to the science consoles at the back of the bridge and glancing over the tactical monitor, generally making his presence known.

The captain didn't have to resort to such tactics to make sure everyone was aware of his presence. There was an aura to him that drew the eye. It was one of the reasons he was such a successful leader, such an effective diplomat. He expected excellence and his crew pushed themselves to their utmost to deliver it lest they disappoint him; he demanded without speaking a single word that opposing parties act like rational beings, and they did.

Deanna could see no trace of the impatience and turmoil going on inside that head on his face, but she knew it was there. It beat at her, a steady pulse of frustration. She found herself wanting to get up and join him in pacing to work off some of that aggravation through motion, but did not. Pacing the bridge was Picard's right alone.

"Captain," Data suddenly piped up.

Picard left off staring at the deck carpet and looked over, leaning both hands on the security arch before resuming his normal posture. "Yes, Mr. Data?"

The android officer tapped at his console as he replied, "Internal sensors are showing a marked drop in the efficiency of multiple key systems."

"Data, can this wait until the next routine diagnostic?" Picard snapped. Deanna raised one eyebrow in surprise. Normally the captain would be anxious about his ship no matter what the circumstances, even in the middle of, say, a Borg invasion. He wouldn't necessarily stop whatever was going on to see to it, but he did need to know.

"Negative, sir. Our power levels are dropping rapidly."

"Confirmed, Captain," Ensign Glenn Darrin interjected from the Engineering sub-control at the back of the bridge. "Massive power drain, unknown origin."

Picard looked up at the companel in the ceiling. "Bridge to Engineering."

"La Forge here," Geordi's voice replied. He sounded hassled. "We just saw it too. No warning. I've isolated the core and life-support, but most of our other key systems are going to be in trouble pretty soon if we can't stop it. We're trying to override now."

"Good work, Commander," Picard replied. "Keep me informed. Bridge out."

The captain strode down the ramp to look over Data's shoulder and confirm his readings. "Most peculiar," he muttered, his worry over the away teams somewhat alleviated by a more immediate and possibly solvable problem. "Is there anything nearby that could be causing the drain? Is it Farpoint?"

"Unknown, sir. It is not within the realm of probability that the decrease is being caused by Farpoint Station itself. However, the cause may be in the vicinity of Farpoint. I will attempt to discover this." Even as he spoke his fingers were flying across the panels with inhuman speed.

"Where is it going?" the captain asked. "Ensign," he commanded, turning to the dark-haired man at the far console, "try to set up a signal within the energy being drained. See if you can track that signal."

"Yes sir," the young man tossed off, working frantically at his console.

All over the ship, the energy drain was becoming apparent as lights flickered, consoles shorted out, and computer displays crashed. On the holodeck, a training scenario vanished with a buzz and a shower of sparks, leaving a handful of crewmembers scattered across the grid floor in oddly contorted positions or strange attitudes. A second later, the lights failed completely shipwide as Geordi and his team desperately tried to protect the essential systems.

"Data to La Forge," the Ops officer said, opening a channel by tapping his commbadge. "I require extra power to the sensors."

Geordi's voice came back muffled and sprinkled with static, but it was still easily recognized as deeply frustrated. "Data, we need (interference) power to keep the SIF intact! Fat (spritz) good the sensors (static) ship falls apart!"

"Understood. Compensating," Data replied, and somehow managed to intercept enough of the power being drained away to boost his sensors.

A few seconds of rapid work later, Data informed the captain, "Sir, the power drain is being initiated from inside the ship! Internal sensors indicate programming inserted into multiple systems: life support, phaser banks, photon torpedo bays, deflector array, internal sensors, artificial gravity, inertial dampeners, impulse engines—"

"That's enough, Data, just shut it off!" Picard cried, practically hearing Will Riker's voice in his head already. _We're sitting ducks!_ he would have said.

"Attempting," Data responded distractedly.

The lights continued to die, and a steady whine of complaints from the consoles and bulkheads intruded on their ears. Picard, back in his seat, dug his fingers into the armrests and glared at the viewscreen as if staring at it would force it to give up its secrets.

"Captain!" the officer at the tactical board cried. "I've got a ship on my sensors!"

Picard twisted around in his chair, looking upward. "From Farpoint? Is it one of our shuttles?"

"Negative, sir," he replied. "It's at 100,000 kilometers off our port bow, between us and open space."

The captain's thoughts were running along similar lines. _We've been cut off!_

* * *

"Hold your fire!"

Riker took a deep breath, coughed on the dust for a second, and then repeated himself, "All personnel, cease fire!"

All around him, phasers were drawn back and puzzled faces turned to him from behind makeshift barricades and little forts. "Commander?"

"We're shooting our own people." Riker swore under his breath. "Look."

The entire squad looked upward. Another shuttlecraft was angling toward the phaser fire it had sighted from above, and as it grew nearer, the registry was clearly apparent: _Shuttlecraft Kagan_. Almost as one, Riker's squad turned to scan the skies again. Their shadow, _Blaidd-Drwg_, was also heading toward them with intent. They had been ordered not to hover directly above their assigned teams all the time, lest they give away their position to the invading forces in the spire, but phaser fire was enough to bring them quickly.

"Damn!" Riker shouted again, making no attempt to hide his anger. Dropping his rifle, he cupped his hands around his mouth and shouted, "Report!" He couldn't remember who had been placed in charge of that team.

"Commander Riker?" a human voice shouted back. "This is the _Holst_'s team. Confirm that's you? Sorry; got to check."

"Affirmative! We're coming out!" In a lower voice, he added to his team, "Keep your phasers ready in case this is a trap."

"Aye, aye, sir," various members of his squad replied, or the equivalent.

Very cautiously, Riker edged around his personal barricade, looking for the distinctive golden shirts of the security forces. He knew that in his red shirt, he would also stand out like a sore thumb, and the knowledge gave him no reassurance.

From the other side of the street, a man in gold stood up and saw him. After a brief double take, he waved before elaborately laying his phaser rifle down beside him and stepping forward. With a grin more relief than amusement, Riker mimicked him, only without the wave on his part. _Kagan_ and _Blaidd-Drwg_, realizing the mistake, moved on.

"Any injuries?" Riker asked the man—by the pips on his collar, a lieutenant.

"We've got two people stunned, sir," the lieutenant replied, looking uncomfortable. "Please, sir, this is my fault."

Riker waved it off. "A simple mistake. We deviated from our attack plan in order to investigate the cause of the jamming signal. Our tricorder readings led us in this direction, and then we saw you."

The lieutenant failed to look very relieved. "Our tricorders haven't been working, sir. How did you get yours to?"

"We didn't." Riker smiled behind his beard. "The readings were weakest over here."

"Oh. I see."

Glancing behind him, the first officer saw that his squad had emerged from their makeshift covers. "Casualty report, ensign," Riker said to the first person he saw.

She glanced around. "One stunned, two phaser burns, sir."

Riker cocked an eyebrow ironically at the apologetic lieutenant. "I suppose I should say good shooting, Lieutenant…"

The man went very red. "Kieran, sir."

The tall commander clapped a hand on his shoulder. "Assign one of your men to stay with the stunned and injured until they recover. I'll do the same. Then resume your approach to the Spire."

Kieran actually saluted. "Yes sir!"

He turned around to designate someone for that duty. Between one movement and the next, a lance of energy descended from the roof of one of the buildings, striking him in the chest and knocking him flying with its force. He skidded to a halt against one wall loosely.

"Take cover! Guard the wounded!" Riker yelled, and the miniature parlay scattered, diving for the tentative protection of walls and scrap.

"That isn't Starfleet issue," Will Riker muttered. "Target the origin of that beam, fire at will!" he shouted to the security officers scattered all around him."

More purple beams shot down toward them, burning into fragile lumber and old metal. The native reddish stone gave like tissue paper under the hostile fire, and flames sparked into brief existence in the timber before being snuffed out by the wind blowing even more dust at them.

_They're not shooting to stun,_ Riker realized. _Whoever they are, looks like they want us dead! Who? Who's shooting at us? Doesn't matter right now!_ he told himself sternly. _This is definitely a shoot-first, ask-questions-later scenario!_

As he scanned the area visually to get a lock on his attackers, his eyes fell on Kieran's body, still lying out in the street. Even as he watched, he saw the man twitch convulsively.

_He's still alive!_ Riker cautiously tucked his rifle under one arm. It was uncomfortable, but it left him both hands free to use. Edging along, staying as close to the wall as he could, he crossed his fingers mentally and made a dash for the phaser-shot lieutenant.

Crouching beside the man's body, completely unprotected practically in the middle of the street, Riker made a split-second analysis. Kieran was bleeding and burned, but he had to be moved. Wincing at the touch of burned flesh on his hands, Riker grabbed his arm and started to haul his subordinate over his shoulder in a jury-rigged fireman's carry that would enable him to stay relatively low, thus presenting less of a target.

The shooters took advantage of Riker's distraction, maneuvering for a better angle of shot across the rooftops. They allowed him to get back to the now-nonexistent cover of the wall. They let him put Kieran down and make him as comfortable as he could, considering. But the instant he picked up his rifle again, the nearest shooter took careful aim and fired, knocking Will Riker down like a bowling pin.

* * *

On the _Enterprise_, the situation was not much better. Due to the power drain, the main viewscreen was not functioning very well, but it was functioning enough to present to the bridge crew a static-filled picture of an unfamiliar ship.

"This model of ship is not in our databanks, sir," Data reported, head on one side in an almost birdlike curiosity.

"Thank you, Mr. Data." Picard, as he so often did in the face of unusual or unexpected danger, had gone very calm and precise. "Lieutenant, raise shields."

"Trying, sir," the man at the tactical console replied. "The power drain has them all but crippled."

Picard didn't even have to say anything. His very posture indicated that that state of affairs was simply unacceptable.

"Aye, sir," the man added, and returned to working on the shields.

The captain tapped his commbadge, hoping that the communications were working. "Bridge to Engineering. Status report."

"La Forge here." The connection was bad, and Geordi sounded tired. "It's not good, Captain. We've managed to block the energy transmission, but we still don't know where it was beaming out to. There's programming embedded in all key systems. And it's been put in deep, sir. It's going to take a complete rewrite at a starbase to get some of this stuff out. And no, I don't know who. But I can tell you it wasn't just one person. This is good stuff, and lots of it."

"What power do we have?"

"Well, the warp core is stable. We did that first, and whoever started overwriting our system mostly left the core alone. Structural integrity fields are holding, for now."

"Captain, shields are at 32 percent," the lieutenant at the tactical console cut in.

"Shields?" Geordi had heard. "Are we about to get into a fight?"

"Possibly," Picard answered quietly, as if the ship he was watching so closely could hear him.

"Aw, damn!" Even through the static, the thump of Geordi's fist on a wall or maybe a table was clearly audible. "We'll try to get the weapons back on line. I can't promise anything, but what else do you need?"

"Mr. La Forge…we need a miracle."

La Forge chuckled, a grim response to gallows humor. "Aye, aye, sir, we'll work on that miracle. Engineering out."

Captain Picard stared at the ship on the viewscreen again. He wondered who it was. He wondered what they wanted. And he hoped that Commander Riker was doing better down on the planet.

"Captain!" the lieutenant at tactical shouted. "They're charging weapons. They're going to open fire!"

"All hands!" Picard shouted quickly, and prayed that the intraship was working. "Brace for impact!"

On the viewscreen, a port lit up, and a stream of bright violet reached out to strike the _Enterprise_, which rocked back as if struck by a giant's hand. The engines screamed against the planet's gravitational pull, and purple fire ate at the shields before moving on to lash over the hull…

* * *

**Author's Note:** I thought I was never going to get this finished! Sorry about the hiatus. Let's just say school and leave it at that. I managed to make it ten pages again! Yes! Um, it's kind of late, so I'm just going to wrap this chapter up by saying that there will be one more flashback chapter, so all your questions about how the _Enterprise_ was stolen will be answered. On that note, please send me the questions so I know which ones to answer!

Next: The _U.S.S. Spartacus_ makes inquiries and tries not to get caught. Starfleet's annoyed.


	8. Torchwood Field

**Chapter Eight: Torchwood Field**

**Disclaimer: **Le'letha does not own _Star Trek_, _Star Trek: The Next Generation_, or anything associated with them. They own her, and have done for most of her life. She owns the _Firefly_ series, but not the rights to it, and disclaims that the cast managed to sneak onto _Free Enterprise_. Le'letha, however, does own the good ships _Spartacus_ and _Antigone,_ but is willing to trot them out for your amusement, because they're fun to play with. She also owns a copy of Star Trek Five, and dares you to find the quote from there. To her immense regret, Le'letha also owns neither a time-traveling blue box nor quite enough bookcases.

**ON WITH THE SHOW!**

_In which _Spartacus_ sneaks, skulks, and runs very fast; people are frustrated; _Antigone _gets a phone call; and there is an edifying demonstration of insincere sincerity._

**

* * *

**_U.S.S. Spartacus: Bridge_

Captain Picard paced the bridge of the _U.S.S. Spartacus_ and wished he had a little bit more room to do so in. He had gotten so used to the spacious bridge of the _Enterprise-D_ that he was beginning to feel a little claustrophobic on her smaller cousin's control center—or maybe it was just that he'd been over all but a few square centimeters of the carpet already.

At the lone science station positioned in an alcove to his left, Commander Riker leaned over La Forge's shoulder, trying to make suggestions.

"How far can you pick out the _Enterprise_ from?" he pestered Geordi. "Is there some fluctuation or variance in her energy emissions that we could detect on long-range?"

Geordi looked about ready to scream. Hunched over at his seat, trying to get as far away from Riker as he could without vacating the bridge, he gritted out, "Commander, with all due respect, I don't even know where the hell I'm looking, much less what to look for. Whoever's got her will have probably reprogrammed all the schematics I could scan for, and we don't know who that is, anyway!"

He sighed, squinting his blind eyes shut. Leaning back in his chair, taking the risk that he'd hit Riker, Geordi gently disengaged his VISOR, depositing it carefully on the console and grinding his hands into his eye sockets. One of them left a smear of engine grease, adding a darker shade to his face.

Riker made a fist and struck the duranium wall softly. "Damn it."

"Ensign, what's our ETA to Farpoint Station?" Picard called out, settling restlessly into his chair. He shifted uncomfortably. _I miss my old chair_, he thought regretfully.

At the helm, Ro Laren glanced over at one of the displays. "Approximately twenty-six hours, sir."

"That's not good enough," Riker told her. She bristled, as if the comment was aimed at her personally, and took her eyes off her controls to spin around and confront him.

"Begging your _pardon, Commander_," she snapped with profound insincerity, "but if we push the engines any further we're going to show up like _pah_-wraith lights on a clear night. We start streaking around that fast, we'll either burn up or light up, and I don't really fancy either, do you?"

"Ensign," the captain said. It wasn't a threat or a warning, just a statement, but it cowed Ro immediately.

"Yes sir," she said. "Sorry sir."

Captain Picard did not even look up from his personal console. He did, however, gesture briefly to Commander Riker.

Ro gritted her teeth, resolving yet again not to blow off steam in front of the captain. As if in extreme pain, she addressed the commander. "My apologies, Commander."

One eyebrow shot up and Riker walked over to join her at the helm. "I understand, Ensign. We're all frustrated."

She tapped one finger on the edge of the console, a safe distance away from any buttons. "The trail's already so cold. And who knows what we're going to find at Farpoint? For all we know, they're just going to call Starfleet on us." She shuddered. "Damn, I hate being a fugitive."

At a faint alert from her console, Ro looked back at the display, pulling it up on one of her little screens. "Captain, we're coming up on the Torchwood Field," she reported.

Picard rested his hands on the armrests. "Mr. Worf, are there any other Starfleet ships scheduled to be in this sector? Ensign Ro, what is the maximum speed we can traverse Torchwood safely?"

The area referred to simply as the Torchwood Field was a former solar system that had been utterly devastated thousands of years ago. Starfleet scientists had theorized that some ancient race had held a battle there, and their weapons or other effluvia, possibly fuel left over from destroyed ships, had not only littered the region with asteroids that accounted for eight fairly large planets and two smaller planetoids, but also energy patterns that still existed to this day. Higher warp speeds were dangerous at best, impossible at worst.

"One moment, sir," Ro said distractedly, already calculating that exact number.

Worf finished scanning the database. "There are no starships assigned to the Torchwood Field at this time, however I must recommend we raise shields."

"Warp three point six, Captain, and we'll be clear in half an hour."

He was obviously not pleased by the delay or the area they had to delay through, but Captain Picard gave the order nevertheless. "Slow to warp three point six, then, Ensign. Mister Worf, go to yellow alert and raise shields."

"Aye sir, decelerating now." Ro pressed the appropriate button and the white streaks on the viewscreen that represented the warping stars thickened greatly in response to their maneuver. Worf also acknowledged his orders, and, with some relief, raised the shields. In deference to their silent running mode, the yellow alert lights flashed only three times before dying away, leaving only an icon on every active display signaling that they remained at yellow alert.

Somewhat revitalized by his extremely short break, La Forge slipped his VISOR back on, blinked a few times to reorient himself, and tapped his commbadge. "La Forge to Data," he said through the commlink. "How's that subspace scanner coming along?"

_U.S.S. Spartacus: Engineering_

Data looked up from his work at an Engineering console a fair distance from the warp core in response to Geordi's hail, a mannerism he'd noted many humans display in a response to attention. His fingers, nevertheless, continued to type rapidly. "Data here," he replied without slowing his pace. "I estimate progress on modifying the comm system seventy-six percent complete."

"Pretty good, Data. Any chance you can speed it up a little? We really need ears."

"Understood. I will endeavor to increase efficiency."

"Hey, you said seventy—seventy-six? Can you give us that seventy-six percent now? That would be better than nothing."

The android officer cocked his head on one side, fingers still not stopping. "Intriguing. Attempting transfer now. Out."

The display before him beeped plaintively, circuits and pathways strained beyond their design limit and out of their original specs. For several seconds it whirred to itself, interspersed with the occasional chirp, punctuating the constant hum of the warp core that dominated the room as it propelled the compact ship through space at warp 3.6. Its pace had slowed somewhat from when it was outputting enough energy to reach a steady speed of warp 9.7. To Data's faint alarm, a small stream of smoke began to trickle out of the far wall, where he and a team of Geordi's engineers had rerouted a large amount of circuits earlier.

He exercised prudence and began to terminate the effort. "I am encountering some problems at this junction. Risk of complete system failure exceeding reasonable margin for error. Terminating program…now."

Before he could enter the appropriate command, the screen in front of him produced a sound worthy of an emergency vehicle's siren. It flashed blue for a split second before turning black. Whatever whirring had built itself up during the attempted transfer abruptly died.

Data waited until he was sure that nothing was going to explode. He tapped his commbadge. "Data to La Forge."

Nothing but silence answered him.

He tried again. "Commander Data to La Forge."

When the commbadge failed to even chirp and he got no response, Data attempted to restart the communications system that he had attempted to remodel. It took a few seconds, almost half a minute, for him to even coax a display out of the computer.

"Main communications systems are off-line," he dictated as if Geordi were really listening. "Restoring original settings."

Pressing the key designated PROGSTART, Data waited as the comm-system picked itself back up. It did so with gratifying speed, connections forced out of their normal configuration resuming their normal function with what would have been, in an organic life form, some trace of relief.

Data took a moment to analyze the damage. Although his impromptu modifications had been deleted from the computer, he remembered them perfectly. Designing the adaptations had been the difficult part. Re-inputting them should not take long.

Before he could resume work, however, the expected call came down from the bridge.

"Mr. Data," Captain Picard's voice said reproachfully, "what in the name of heaven and earth is going on down there?"

"The subspace scanner failed its initial startup sequence," he explained. "A modification of _Spartacus_' original communications system, Mr. La Forge and I designed an adjustment to the long-range subspace radio that should allow _Spartacus_ to pick up on all subspace traffic within a certain range, anticipating some mention of the _Enterprise_ to give us a 'lead' on _Enterprise'_s location."

"Yes, I understand what you're trying to do, Mr. Data," Picard answered patiently. "What I want to know is, why is it disabling all our intraship communication, and can you stop it from happening again?"

Data considered. "Possibly not, sir. A side effect of the rerouting of so many communications channels may be that comm traffic within the _Spartacus_ may be impeded. Until the system is fully operational, I am not able to predict its effects."

There was a brief silence as the captain considered. In the background of the transmission, Data's keen audio sensors detected the voice of Geordi La Forge trying to take some of the blame on his own shoulders by explaining that he had asked for the seventy-six-percent-finished system.

The captain gave Geordi a fair hearing before ordering him back to his station. Over the comm channel, he resumed, "Mr. Data, we cannot afford to be deaf. By now there will be at least one starship deployed after us, and alerts will have gone out along our most likely paths of travel. However, all departments need to communicate with each other in the case of an incident. Get both systems on line. That's an order."

"Yes, sir," Data replied softly. "Data out."

Returning his attention to the console, Data began rebuilding the subspace scanner from scratch.

_U.S.S. Spartacus: Shipwide_

Almost all of _Spartacus'_ lower decks were dark, a limited number of exceptions being a small amount of crew quarters and areas such as sickbay, which enjoyed a limited amount of power that was still more than the rest of the ship got. Unessential areas, cargo bays, all but two transporter rooms, the science labs, and the ship's lone holodeck had been shut down and sealed off.

The crew had been encouraged not to leave their cabins, which they had been condensed in as much as was decently possible, except for their duty shifts, extra work details, or in the case of an emergency. The corridors were dark, illuminated only by the very faint emergency lights that hugged the deck and cast light on only limited sections of the carpet. With the assumption that they were being actively looked for in full force, the _Spartacus_ was running silent, a term that had carried over from the days of submarine warfare despite the notorious fact that in space, sound didn't carry and no one could hear you scream.

To that end, all but essential facilities: life support, artificial gravity, and the replicator systems had been powered down. Even those systems had been reduced to save energy that could be rerouted into the engines, structural integrity fields, and sensors.

In the interest of secrecy, _Spartacus_ was flying without the running lights that a starship usually displayed so proudly. Small and compact, the _Akira_-class starship was sneaking through the Torchwood Field, ready to leap back to almost two thousand times the speed of light at her captain's command.

With visual detection mostly foiled, _Spartacus_ faced another contradictory challenge. To get accurate and clear readings with both long- and short-range sensors, necessity demanded that active scanners be engaged. Unfortunately, to continue with the submarine metaphor, active scanners were the equivalent of a searchlight in dark waters. You may be able to see whatever your sensors are trained on, but everyone else can see your sensors. Active sensors were easy to detect, and routinely were when ships scanned each other for weapons, shields, life signs, et cetera.

Passive sensors, on the other hand, could not be detected at long range. By the time passive sensors were picked up by the other ship, you were right on top of them. Passive sensors, though, lacked the resolution and distance of the active breed. They were all but useless over interstellar distances.

Between the two of them and the Engineering team, Data and Geordi La Forge had come up with modifications to the comm systems that turned them into an updated version of twenty-first century police scanners. Once they had completed refiguring it, _Spartacus_ would be able to hear every bit of subspace traffic within range without registering on anyone else's systems.

If they weren't in such a hurry, it would be eerie.

* * *

_Torchwood Field: U.S.S. Antigone, Bridge_

"Commander, transmission coming in from Starfleet Command," Lieutenant Reynolds reported at tactical. He caught the eyes of _Antigone_'s first officer, one Simone Kayleson, and added, "It's for the captain."

Kayleson shrugged and looked up at the bridge intercom. "Captain Stock, please report to the bridge. Message from Starfleet."

No sooner had she closed off the last syllable than the turbolift doors opened and the captain stepped off. He paused for a second to survey the bridge before joining his Number One in the command well.

"That was fast, sir," she said archly.

He shrugged. "I was on my way. Put it through, Mr. Reynolds."

Due to the interference inherent to some of the Torchwood Field's rougher spots, it took several seconds before Reynolds managed to clear out the majority of the static, although it still danced around the edges of the image from time to time, and connect _Antigone_'s bridge and the forbidding visage of Admiral Ivan Langtry, one of the resident admirals of Utopia Planitia, Mars.

"Admiral," Stock said politely, nodding a greeting. He could see Kayleson move into place on his right to where she would be picked up only on the edge of the transmission. "To what do we owe this honor?"

Langtry frowned, in no mood for pleasantries. "Captain Stock, explain your current location."

Captain Stock tried not to look too confused. "We're just inside the Torchwood Field, sir. We received a distress signal two days ago and were trying to track it down. We did locate the source: Chrysalian freighter, all hands lost. The cargo is in our bay; the bodies in our morgue. The ship could be recovered with work."

This less-than-success story did not seem to be what Langtry was looking for. "Captain Stock, are you aware of a recent situation involving the _Enterprise-D_ and its crew?"

"With respect, sir," a phrase usually meaning that whatever followed was not likely to be very respectful, "I think practically everyone knows about that. Or did you mean something a little more recent?"

Langtry's eyes narrowed; the burn across his cheek pulled visibly. "The former crew of the _Enterprise-D_ stole a starship, the _U.S.S. Spartacus,_ from Utopia Planitia. They then headed out in pursuit of their hijacked vessel, in violation of express orders. We tracked them on sensors as far as we could. They dropped off the radar not far from your current location."

"I understand, sir." Exactly _what_ he understood, Stock deliberately failed to say.

"The _Enterprise_ was lost in orbit of Deneb IV. We predict they'll go back there and try to search for their former ship themselves."

Stock didn't see anything wrong with wanting to get your ship back. If someone stole _Antigone_ from him, he'd probably be fairly ticked off himself. He could only assume it was the 'violation of express orders' part that Langtry was angry about. The captain briefly wondered who had been stupid enough to order Jean-Luc Picard to give up his ship without a fight.

"What are our orders when we do locate the _Spartacus_?" Stock asked the admiral on the viewscreen.

"You are not to fire on Picard unless you have no other choice. He should be willing to listen to reason, so attempt to negotiate first. Picard and his crew must return to stand trial."

"Message received, sir. We'll keep an eye out for them."

"No, Captain Stock, you will go in open pursuit of them. Effective immediately. Starfleet out." Ivan Langtry vanished from the viewscreen as quickly as he had come, leaving the Federation logo winking at the bridge crew until Lieutenant Reynolds closed the channel from their end as well.

Captain Stock retired to his chair and kicked his legs out in front of him with an annoyed sigh.

"I wonder," Commander Kayleson said thoughtfully, "if his problem with Picard right now is that he's run off, or that he managed to steal a starship right out from under Langtry's nose?"

Stock laughed briefly, a mere chuckle. "I wonder. Knowing Picard, he's got a good reason. Ensign Cobbton, plot a search pattern along the edge of Torchwood Field. Let's see if he's out there. Mr. Reynolds, what class of ship is _Spartacus_, anyway?"

A faint sequence of bleeps filled the moments between question and answer. "She's an _Akira_-class, sir. They're fairly small, very fast and often heavily armed. The power curve is ridiculous, though. They keep having energy-flow problems. A couple prototypes just blew up all by themselves."

"They'll definitely have to slow down to get through Torchwood, then, especially with a record like that. Ensign, engage."

Captain Stock mused for a few moments, hands behind his head as he watched the stars began to move on the viewscreen, when they were visible through the debris of that long-ago incident, an increasingly puzzled look beginning to spread across his face. Finally, he stood up. "Simone, you have the bridge," he said distractedly. "I'll be down in the cargo bay."

* * *

_U.S.S. Enterprise_: Bridge

"Captain!" Worf shouted, forgetting to lower his voice in surprise. "Starship coming up on our port bow!"

Riker leapt from his seat, vaulting over the last foot or so of arch in order to waste no time in joining Worf at tactical. "What? What is it? Where did it come from?"

"Unknown, sir. Interference from the Torchwood Field makes accurate sensor readings…difficult," the Klingon ground out.

Picard scanned the bridge quickly and tapped his commbadge, hoping that the intraship communicators were working. "Mister Data, report to the bridge immediately!" Closing the channel, he added. "Mr. La Forge—"

"I'm gone, sir!" Geordi snapped, abandoning his science station and rushing to the turbolift, which expelled Data almost as he reached it in a testament to the speed of the turbolifts, or perhaps Data.

"Attempting to cut through interference, Captain," Data said, efficiently sliding into his seat at Ops as if he had been there all along. His fingers rushed across the keys.

"Getting clearer readings now," Worf confirmed. "It is an _Apollo_-class starship, registry number 37796, _U.S.S. Antigone_." He kept scanning. "Their shields are up. Weapons not charged."

"The _Antigone_?" Picard said in some surprise. "I know that ship. Mr. Worf, remain at yellow alert, and do not charge weapons. Keep our shields raised."

Worf took his hands away from the red alert switch and the firing controls quickly and wondered if the captain really could see out of the back of his head, as humans put it. Riker grinned at him sympathetically until a deeply Klingon look made the first officer leave off teasing him.

"Ensign Ro, slow to impulse," Picard commanded quite calmly. Rising, he straightened his jacket and said, "Put me through to Captain Stock."

Raising his voice, he hailed, "_U.S.S. Antigone_, this is the _Spartacus_ under the command of Jean-Luc Picard."

After a few seconds, the viewscreen changed to show the other ship's bridge and her captain, a fairly tall man with faintly curly black hair. Rather sardonically, he replied, "Good afternoon, Jean-Luc. I preferred your old ship."

Picard did not allow himself to be surprised by Stock's sarcasm. "As did I, old friend. Unfortunately, times change."

"They must indeed, to make Jean-Luc Picard a fugitive from justice," Stock observed.

"Ah," Picard said somewhat regretfully. "I assume you spoke with Admiral Langtry, then."

"I did at that." Viewer moving to follow him, Stock sat down in his center chair and propped one ankle on his other knee casually. "You should know I have orders to return both you and your little _Spartacus_ to Sector 001."

"Yes."

The _Antigone_'s captain seemed somewhat nonplussed by Picard's simple answer. "Are you planning on doing something about that, then?"

"Well, it depends," Picard answered, taking a few steps toward the viewscreen, "on what _you_ do next."

Stock sighed, letting his shoulders drop before running one hand through his hair. "I have my orders, Jean-Luc. Upon detection of the _Spartacus_, _Antigone_ is to bring you into custody, preferably without damage to ship or crew."

Captain Picard paused, considering. "Then it is quite unfortunate for us that your search pattern brought you to this region just in time to intercept us. Had you visited one other sector first, we would have been undetectable."

Close examination might have revealed a rather impish glint in Stock's grey eyes. "Most unlucky. In fact, my Number One had recommended that we search a different area first."

Picard nodded sagely, locking his hands behind the small of his back. "It would have been a perfectly legitimate variation."

Both bridge crews' heads turned back and forth, watching each captain speak as if they were at a tennis match. Vague smirks were beginning to surface on various faces.

"Now, what's truly disappointing, Jean-Luc," Stock mused, "is that if you had continued on your way unabated, you would have come across the wreck of a Chrysalian freighter on an asteroid with a ferrous core."

"A tragedy indeed, to die so far from home," Picard deadpanned.

"Curious, isn't it, Jean-Luc? But what's really curious is the information stored within that ship's databanks. We made a copy of the information, and it went a long way to explaining what they were doing out here. Especially the captain's personal log for the last two weeks, which proved very interesting."

"Pray elaborate."

Captain Robbie Stock actually winked. "Sorry, Jean-Luc. I can't. _Antigone_'s too far away. We'll be in sensor range in about half an hour, though."

"We're sorry to have missed you, then," Picard said with perfect serenity. "I would have enjoyed catching up on old times."

"Perhaps in a happier time and place."

"I look forward to it, Robbie."

"Best of luck, Jean-Luc. _Antigone_ out."

Captain Stock vanished from the viewscreen, replaced by the clutter and chaos of Torchwood Field, with his _Antigone_ a silver highlight against the black, grey, and brown rocks. Without wasting another second, the _Apollo_-class starship turned around in an elegant swoop and headed back the way she had come.

"Mr. Worf," Picard ordered without turning around as he watched _Antigone_ go, "please make sure that encounter is erased from all ship's logs. It is never to be spoken of."

Worf said gruffly, "What encounter, sir?"

Now the captain smiled for real. "Good man. Ensign Ro, I see an unusual reading emanating from this region of Torchwood Field."

Ro looked up at him, struggling not to grin. "It could be a ship in some distress, sir. Torchwood is a dangerous place for small vessels."

"Captain," Commander Riker chimed in, the light of absolute insincere sincerity in his eyes, "despite the urgency of our current mission, we cannot ignore a vessel in need."

Picard raised one eyebrow. "Very well, Number One. Ensign, change course to rendezvous with that ship."

"Aye, sir," Ro said with a sound that, in anyone else, would have been almost a giggle, and began to input the correct commands.

Data watched in some puzzlement, wondering about the peculiarities of humanoids in general.

* * *

_Ship's Log, Freighter Coronath out of Chrysalith Prime:_

Entry 2897: _We have received the coordinates promised us by our contact in the black market. In the past several weeks there have been rumors of a great treasure soon to be for sale to the highest bidder, although of course they were not stated in so precise nor so simple terms. We are proceeding to the location specified in order to confirm for ourselves what new item has entered the open market._

_ x _

Entry 2898: _Coordinates first supplied only a lure to entice the rich. We found only a single ship, broadcasting an open channel with nothing on it. When we hailed the ship, which was of an unknown design, we were invited aboard by an equally unknown party. Although the Chrysalian people prefer to deal through a middleman, this option was not available at this time. To obtain information, a boarding party consisting of the captain, two bridge officers, and a security guard accepted the invitation._

_ x _

Entry 2899: _Through some feat of wizardry, a Ferengi DaiMon, whose name was not made known to the boarding party, has managed to acquire a Federation starship. Although at first we assumed this great prize to be merely a retired elderly vessel, we were offered incontrovertible proof that this item is in fact the flagship, the famed _Enterprise.

_We are worried. The Chrysalian people consider war unthinkable, but other races are not so enlightened. Should this great vessel, with its immense power for both benefit and harm, fall into more careless, violent hands, it could be used as a weapon capable of destroying entire worlds._

_ x _

Entry 2900: _Through bribery, we have obtained the coordinates wherefrom the great _Enterprise _is to be bartered away to whatever rich and warlike party can obtain it. We also will proceed to this auction. If at all possible, this power cannot be allowed to fall into violent hands._

x 

Entry 2901: _There are ships of all designs gathered at this location, which we believe has served as a base for smugglers for centuries. They range from the pitiful small ships of backwater worlds whose only economy has been, for thousands of years, smuggling, to great ships of powerful empires. Many utilize cloaking devices, and there have already been collisions wherein a cloaked ship and a visible one collide. More spectacular still was one incident in which two cloaked vessels impacted. Until they erupted into flames, space seemed empty. We are in great danger here, but we are resolved to prevent_ Enterprise _falling into hands that would use her power badly at all costs._

x 

Entry 2902: _What representatives transported down to the asteroid to wager for a starship remained concealed to the best of their ability, so it would be impossible to tell who finally emerged triumphant were it not for an incident that took place after the auction closed. Many of the larger vessels had already departed. Without warning, the_ Enterprise _opened fire on the ships gathered around the asteroid base. We did not see where she had been hidden. She is a flagship for a reason and is quick and powerful. Almost before she appeared on our sensors she was in our midst, incinerating the ships that remained. We could not get a reading on the life-forms aboard, but remaining close to the larger ship and finishing off the ships that she wounded in passing was a smaller vessel. We have analyzed its energy signature and have deduced that it is Romulan. The Romulan Star Empire has the_ Enterprise.

x 

Entry 2903: _It appears that the_ Coronath _was damaged in the firefight between the_ Enterprise _and the other ships. We are attempting to return to our homeworld for repairs. We have plotted a course. It is the swiftest route, but it takes us through many hazards._

x 

Entry 2904: _The condition of the_ Coronath _is worsening._

x 

Entry 2905: _System failures spreading shipwide._

x 

Entry 2906: _Entering Torchwood Field._

_ x _

_SYSTEM ERROR: NO FURTHER ENTRIES AVAILABLE_

* * *

Captain Picard put down the PADD onto which the logs of the ill-fated _Coronath_ had been downloaded onto before _Spartacus_ had quit Torchwood Field in a hurry. Now free of obstruction, the little ship was speeding along at warp 9 in order to have some spare power for Geordi and Data to finish their subspace scanner project.

"Ensign Ro," he said grimly, "alter course. Take us toward the Neutral Zone. Maximum warp."

"Aye, _aye_, sir," she confirmed with a little more vehemence than such a little order usually mandated. "Course locked in."

"Engage," he snapped, shooting his index finger along their path of travel. At the Romulans. Toward his _Enterprise_.

* * *

**Author's Note:** Happy Independence Day to my fellow Americans! Once again I am forced to apologize for all the allusions that popped up in here, including but not limited to British pop culture, _Garfield_ references, and the Oedipus myth. Le'letha thanks the cast of Joss Whedon's _Firefly_ for being kind enough to help me crew _Antigone_; the _Star Trek Encyclopedia_; and readers as follows: **TwoClovedHooves**, **Zara08**, **shadowwolf75**, **AlbinoDrow**, **StevenM**, all of you who have this story on your alerts and/or favorites lists, and of course, the invaluable **SonOfTed**, without whom I don't think I would be having quite as much fun writing this.

**Next:** _Allusions, illusions, delusions, contusions, fusions, seclusions, and many other words ending in '-usions'. Also, detailed instructions on how to spook a large number of Romulan soldiers, including a section on creative uses of the ship's systems, and the concept of instructive chaos. (Le'letha disclaims the phrase 'instructive chaos'.)_


	9. Ships and Shoes and Sealing Wax

**Chapter Nine: Ships and Shoes and Sealing Wax**

**Acknowledgement: **Yes, Virginia, there is a God, and He allowed the _Star Trek Encyclopedia_ for detail-obsessed fanwriters. I could not have written this chapter accurately without it. Many thanks to Michael and Janet Okuda, as well as Debbie Mirek, who compiled the invaluable _Encyclopedia_.

Disclaimer is at the end of the chapter, as it contains spoilers.

**ON WITH THE SHOW!**

_Allusions, illusions, delusions, contusions, fusions, seclusions, confusions, suffusions, conclusions, and sundry other words ending in '-usions', as Liarka goes down the rabbit hole._

Varka's day was steadily going downhill. First the saboteur hunt had turned into a complete disaster, thanks to, no doubt, her good-for-nothing loose cannon of a cousin. Then, to top it all off, the _Enterprise_ was being shot at by a Breen ship.

"Where's it gone?" she shouted, and was instantly infuriated with herself for having the fairly stupid question come out in an unfortunate yelp.

"They must have recloaked!" a decurion replied, tapping furiously at his console. "They've completely vanished!"

Varka shot him a glare that would put dry ice to shame. "That is, I believe, what cloaks do," she responded, voice threatening instant demotion, if not death. "_Find it."_

"Yes ma'am. Sir. Commander," the unfortunate decurion saluted, desperately staring at the controls in hopes of piercing the shields through spontaneously developed X-ray vision.

Returning to the command chair, the commander activated the personal console adjacent to the captain's chair. "Damage report," she said to whoever was listening.

"Commander, internal sensors report no damage. But earlier they said there were hull breaches on decks thirteen, sixteen, and forty…inertial dampeners going critical…shields at sixty percent…and now it's just gone! All of it!"

Clenching her fists, Varka repressed the urge to growl. Keeping a wary eye on the viewscreen for the mysterious ship, which had not yet made its reappearance, she tapped the panel for internal communications. "Liarka Ki'riin, this is the bridge. Respond."

An instant later, she regretted it, as Liarka, still fuming from being spooked, shot at, screamed at, and cut off, in that order, picked up where she had left off. "What the hell do you want now?"

"Sub-commander, that is unacceptable," Varka snapped, sounding like an instructor she had had while in training, evoking a mixture of residual fear and amusement.

Liarka must have heard it to, for she almost gulped. "Understood, _sir_."

"Are you still in the sickbay?"

"Yeah, why do you want to know? Hope it's not needed, these idiots made a real mess of it."

Varka managed not to ask what role her cousin had played in the making of that mess. "Find a tricorder. I need readings of deck thirteen. The computer told us there was a hull breach, but it appears to have changed its mind."

"A _breach?_" Liarka asked rhetorically. "Commander, if there was a hull breach, we would have felt its effects by now."

She did not have time for her cousin's suppositions. Any minute now, Varka was sure, that Breen ship was going to swing around and attack them again, and there would be no more than a second's warning, if that.

"Get the tricorder. Now!"

"Yessir," Liarka responded sulkily over the open comm channel. "Just a minute."

Thumbing the console, the commander put her subordinate's channel on hold. "Tactical, what's our weapons status?"

"Phasers recharging; they're at ninety-three percent," the man said steadily, reassured by having an answer ready for her. "Photon torpedoes are armed. Ready to fire on your signal. Shields back at full power. It's like they were never down in the first place!"

Varka gave him no praise, preferring instead to let the lack of criticism stand on its own. "Where's that ship?" she snapped. She gave in to the urge to stand up and head toward the viewscreen, as if standing closer to the image would somehow reveal to her what even the ship's sensors could not detect.

No one answered her, preferring not to run the risk of saying something stupid that she could use against them.

Liarka chose that moment to call back. "Bridge, this is Ki'riin. The tricorder says there's nothing wrong with the ship anywhere it can detect, except for, um, collateral damage." _Translation:_ Varka thought spitefully, _the mess my soldiers made._ "And there's certainly not a hull breach."

"Still no sign of the enemy ship," the tactical officer put in. "It seems to be gone."

"Or waiting for us to drop our guard," Varka snapped. "Helm, resume preplanned course, maximum warp. There's no way I'm going to wait around here for them to start shooting again. If they want the _Enterprise _so badly, they'll have to chase her."

Suddenly, a centurion stationed at one of the science consoles spoke up. Varka was surprised. She'd assigned people to those stations mostly to make Liarka's job of finding separate shifts for the known Tal Shiar spies easier. She'd never expected them to do anything useful. It wasn't as if they were on a scientific exploration mission. They were there to hold down chairs.

"Commander," the elderly Romulan soldier said, "I've been detecting disruptions in the computer core, specifically the areas dedicated to external and internal sensors."

Varka almost, _almost_ said 'So what?' at him. She managed to bite it back at the last second, instead abandoning the forward area of the bridge in favor of the very aft.

"Look," the man said, pulling up a display. Varka blinked at it. It looked like so much gibberish to her.

He seemed to realize that. "This is a representation of all the active computer memory in use at the moment. Just before the attack, these files were activated: a database on the Breen, their ships, and their crews; specifically, one the Federation crew seems to have encountered several months ago, judging by the date on the file." He activated the appropriate screen.

"Are you saying…" Varka said slowly, "that that entire attack was a _sensor ghost?_"

The soldier nodded. "Yes, Commander."

Varka glanced over her shoulder nervously at the warping, thinning stars on the viewscreen. This theory sounded like nothing more than half a hallucination—which, if she were to believe him, was exactly what it was. The skin on the back of her neck crawled nervously. She felt as though someone was standing behind her in a dark room, and she didn't know whether or not he had a weapon.

"A scenario constructed so elaborately needs a mind behind it," she said finally. "Our saboteur, it seems, is still on board." _Damn you, Liarka!_

"And it would explain why the damage to the ship has suddenly vanished," he added. "The _Enterprise_ sustained similar damage during the original encounter."

She rested one hand on her belt and started paging through the documents with her stronger left hand. At first glance, the data contained in the file seemed like plenty of material with which to program in a scenario on a holodeck program. "That could not have been a computer malfunction. Look into it. If you can find a console or port from where that was programmed in, then I'll consider it."

She raised her voice, addressing the bridge at large. "Until then, we stay on alert. Shields up, weapons armed at all times. Understood?"

A chorus of "Yes, Commander," echoed back at her, and she nodded. But she still shot another uneasy glance at the main viewer before returning to her central chair.

* * *

In a fuming, sulfuric temper, Liarka was headed up to the bridge. She had not been invited. Her cousin was no doubt furious with her. But she was furious with Varka, too, so she was going to head up to Deck One and vent some of that anger right at her arrogant relative.

It was this trait, among others, that made Liarka unsuitable for command, or, indeed, unsafe to let off a fairly tight leash. She spoke her mind, always and often, no matter how vitriolic or impudent. She got angry easily, and anger made her violent, made her inhibitions much lower than was safe. Her judgment deteriorated the angrier she got, quite the opposite of the cold fury that personified a truly angry Varka.

So, here she was, storming down the corridors of Deck Twelve like an enraged demon from the old tales she had loved as a child. Her mood was not improved by the damage to the bulkheads, inflicted by centurions frightened by the heat, pressure, and darkness that had mysteriously afflicted the level as they swept it for the unknown stowaway.

They had really managed to wreck the corridors, in a way only panicked Romulan soldiers with disruptors can achieve. In places the walls were melted into the floor, revealing damaged circuitry, wires, computer panels, and other workings of a starship that Liarka much preferred stayed behind the pristine bulkheads that had been much in evidence before her squads had arrived. They looked, she thought morbidly, like entrails—without the benefit of having once been alive.

She picked her way through the worst of the rubble, kicking aside what little pieces came near enough and were light enough to be kicked without damage to her foot. Bad enough that she had to walk through these corridors, but to add insult to injury, the nearest turbolift to sickbay, where she had left in her snit, had insisted that it was out of order and had refused to budge so much as an inch. The doors wouldn't even open. It just beeped at her.

Beeped _haughtily_, Liarka was convinced. If she ever caught the Federation technician who had programmed the computer with the voice of such an arrogant woman, she would have something to say to him, and it would not be 'blessings'. She hoped that it hadn't been based off of a real person. The woman would have been a force to be reckoned with, or, even better, avoided.

Her roving foot hit shrapnel that had looked deceptively light and harmless, and it rebounded off the wall and exploded. With a shout, Liarka jumped back, trying to cover her face and retain her balance at the same time.

She failed at both, ending up on her rear end with pieces of hot metal and flaming plastic falling all about her. The subcommander swatted at them, panicking as the flames hit her red hair, momentarily making it even redder before she snuffed the miniature blaze out, scorching her fingers as well as an unfortunate lock of hair.

Staring at the damage to her hand unbelievingly, Liarka jumped back to her feet and looked around frantically until she found the smoking remains of the detonated component. She swung her foot back but stopped before kicking it again.

"This ship is a death trap," she muttered at it, internally congratulating herself for not screaming at it. Turning her back on the further damage, she continued on to the turboshaft.

As a second thought, with no one to see her, she stuffed her burnt fingers in her mouth and sucked on them to relieve the pain.

* * *

Liarka was not paying attention, preoccupied by her singed fingers and with thoughts of what she was going to say to Varka when she got to the bridge. So when the turbolift ceased upward motion and she stepped out of the car, she stopped short, surprised.

"What the _hell?_" she protested. "No. No. This is _stupid!_" She spun around on one boot heel to get back in the turbolift, but too late. The doors had already closed, and slamming the control panel or doors themselves proved useless. The car had already left. It had only taken her up one deck.

Liarka swore at it, but refrained from kicking anything else lest it be booby-trapped. "Fine," she told it. "I'll climb up through the maintenance tunnels if I have to."

She set her hands on her hips confrontationally and made a sound halfway between a growl and a sigh. "That'd be me talking to a metal door, then," she complained.

Turning and heading down the corridor in search of a working turbolift or an entrance to a Jeffries tube, Liarka took a deep breath and tried to calm down. Fingering the hilt of her belt knife, which was reassuringly familiar, the red-haired Romulan tried to think about the last few events rationally. Clearly her saboteur search was on the right track, for if they were doing the wrong thing, the stowaway would not have interfered.

"Unless," she thought out loud, "we're being tricked, and he or she wants us to think that. Or them. I suppose it could be a 'them'. They could want us to keep chasing our tails around the lower decks. But wouldn't it worry them, though?" she asked a nearby intersection. "I mean, if we're shutting down life support, they've got to breathe, right?"

She considered. "Does Starfleet have any aliens that don't need to breathe? Damn it, what if they've got secret EVA suits somewhere…ones that weren't in the ship's storage records?"

Caught up in such cheerful thoughts, she stopped suddenly. At the corner of her eye, she was sure she'd seen movement along an adjacent corridor.

"Who's there?" she challenged, drawing her dagger and hefting it. It would give her little protection against an intruder with a phaser rifle, but she wanted to have the weapon anyway.

"Identify yourself!" she called, moving toward where she thought she had seen the movement.

There was no reply, and no more movement. A few consoles beeped at her happily. She didn't spare them more than a passing glare.

Ahead of her, she heard, quite clearly, a voice, a female voice, by its accent human, shouting, "Run away! Run away!"

Liarka whooped triumphantly and broke into a run. Even as she rounded the corner, she saw a large door hushing closed. Even as it sealed, she heard the same voice calling, "Computer, seal door!"

She pulled to a stop in front of said door, grinning. She had to act quickly, or otherwise the woman and whoever she had warned would escape. Slapping a nearby companel, she cried, "Bridge, this is Ki'riin! Varka, I've found them, they're on—" A quick glance confirmed her location. "—Deck Eleven!"

Without waiting for acknowledgement or reply, she closed the channel and confronted the door.

"Now, let's get this open," she told nobody, continuing her new habit of talking to doors. Starting with the direct approach, she palmed the controls. They flashed red at her, and Liarka grinned proudly.

When they didn't open, the smile dropped from her face. It took a few more moments for her to remember that humans, with their red blood, used red as a warning or a negative. It had been driving the Romulans half mad. The humans' affirmative and safe color, green, was exactly the color of Romulan blood, which the Empire used as a warning.

"Dammit!" she told the door. "Computer, open this door immediately!"

"Unable to comply," the computer voice responded primly. "Door is sealed."

Liarka growled, "Override controls," at it.

"Unable to comply."

Glaring at it, Liarka tried a different, but equally basic, strategy. Using the knife she still held in her hand, she jammed the blade into the controls, shorting them out. Sparks flew, conducted along the metal edge, but she managed to only flinch, covering her eyes with her free hand, without pulling away. Luckily for her right hand, the hilt of the knife was insulated.

When the sparks stopped and Liarka had blinked the majority of the afterimages from her eyes, she looked down at the panel. Smirking like a feral cat, she inspected the results of her handiwork.

The controls were completely dead, charred and half-melted, with knife cuts through some of them. "Very nice," she congratulated herself, and then reconsidered.

"Of course, I've probably just locked myself out."

No sooner had she said this than the door clicked and swished open, receding into the wall. Liarka braced herself unless there was a squadron of tentacle-mouthed things or something equally horrible on the other side.

There was nothing of the sort. It appeared to be a fairly standard living compartment, with no personalized touches. It had been, however, thoroughly trashed earlier, most likely by Liarka's riot squad.

There was no sign of any inhabitants, least of all a human female. Liarka scowled at the main room and quickly checked the two other rooms. No sign of anyone.

"Where's that backup I called for?" she complained to the shower door. "Shit, there I go again. Talking to doors. What the hell's next?"

She sheathed her dagger and stomped back to the door, stepping around the remains of what might have been a couch. "On the other hand," Liarka told the ventilation shaft, which was far too small for a human to pass through, "maybe its better they never showed up. I would have looked a right idiot. Mind you, I'm still going to tear them to shreds about it."

Abandoning Deck Eleven, Liarka found a turbolift that worked, ordering it to take her to the bridge.

When it hissed to a stop and opened the door, Liarka peered around the edge of the door, not caring how silly she looked. If anyone laughed, she'd just blow up at them.

She was in luck. No one even looked around. No one was facing her way.

Come to think of it, no one was moving. At all.

Liarka edged out onto the bridge, jumping when the doors swished shut behind her. It was eerily silent. No one was talking. The consoles were murmuring to each other, making their usual assortment of bleeps and clicks, but even that seemed somewhat subdued. On the viewscreen, the stars continued to stretch away past them.

But no one was moving. It took not even a second for Liarka to pinpoint what was wrong.

The officers at the two forward consoles were slumped back in their chairs. One's head was lolling over backwards. His eyes were closed. Next to him, the helmsman's hands had fallen off the controls and were dangling at his sides over the edge of the chair.

The centurion posted at the tactical arch, at first glance bending over to check some readings more closely, proved to be draped across it quite cleverly. He, too, was unconscious, if not dead. At the science consoles to the rear of the bridge, a Romulan's upper body was lying along the display as if taking a short nap.

In the center seat, Varka's eyes stared blindly at the ceiling. There wasn't a scratch on her.

Liarka took all this in and drew in a big gulp of air reflexively. An instant later, she realized what she'd done and gagged. For all she knew, there was a poison gas in the air. Clapping one hand over her mouth, she groped at the wall beside her, searching frantically for one of the gas masks she was wagering on being stored there.

After a few desperate seconds, she opened a cabinet that dropped a rain of gas masks all over her. She grabbed one from the heap and pressed it to her face, inhaling gratefully. Strapping it on, she managed to dig herself out of the cascade of gas masks, which seemed to have grown bigger since that first wave. Even as she extracted herself, another mask fell on her head.

Half muffled by the plastic filter over her mouth and nose, which was clinging to her despite her not having strapped it around her head, Liarka yelped in protest, swatting it away. No sooner had she done that than another mask dropped onto her.

She managed to get away from them after a few seconds of agitated swiping. Once clear, she stared at the little compartment incredulously before turning her attention to more important things. Like, for example, what had happened to the bridge crew?

Shoving the inert Romulan centurion at the weapons control station onto the floor, Liarka navigated her way through the internal sensors. A minute or two of desperate button-pressing and running in cyberspace circles led her finally to the current readouts for the deck. To her bafflement, it showed no significant deviation from the oxygen-nitrogen-argon-carbon dioxide mixture that suffused the entire ship, with the exception of some of the hydroponics experiments.

"What the hell?" she asked for what felt like the thousandth time that day. Frowning thunderously, she looked up at the ceiling. "Computer!"

"Working," it said obediently.

"Replace the air on Deck One with a fresh mixture. Standard setting."

"Working," the computer repeated. Moments later, Liarka heard the rush of ventilation systems beginning to work overtime.

Liarka sighed, already wanting to take off the mask. After a few nervous seconds as she glanced around at the insensitive bridge crew, she put her hand to the plastic and tried to pull it off.

It refused to budge.

Growling, she tugged harder on it with both hands. Freeing one to reach around the back of her head, she discovered to her shock that the straps still dangled across her cheeks. It was simply stuck to her face!

With an almighty wrench that took skin off her face, the subcommander finally managed to pull it loose before it could finish eating her, or whatever it was going to do. The edges left a ring of livid green skin around her mouth and nose. She touched it lightly with two fingers as she ground the demon mask underfoot, taking no little pleasure in listening to the plastic crack between her heavy boots and the carpet.

When she was quite certain that whatever it had been was certifiably dead, Liarka thumbed the nearest companel. "Bridge Shift B," she hailed, "report to the bridge at once. Also, whoever is in sickbay, send a team to the bridge."

She allowed herself to look worriedly over the arch at her cousin's limp form. With her adrenaline level dropping somewhat after her encounter with the mask, she realized that she didn't even know if any of them were alive or dead.

"Computer," Liarka called, still breathing heavily with exertion and no little fear, "confirm current heading."

A moment's pause, and then the computer responded, "At current speed of warp nine point two, _Enterprise_ will arrive at Barcelona Prime at 1800 hours."

"What!?" Liarka shouted at it. "All stop!"

It didn't respond, and, swearing, Liarka realized that it did not accept verbal course change commands. Stepping over the prone soldier at a dead run, she careened down the short slope and shoved the unfortunate man at the helm onto the floor. Dropping into the chair so recently occupied, Liarka tapped frantically at the console, bringing them back onto a course for the Romulan Star Empire.

She sat back in her chair and sighed as the display confirmed that they had now returned to their original path of travel.

Now that her adrenaline rush had died down somewhat, Liarka looked over her shoulder and shuddered, wishing that the relief squads would arrive. It was eerie to be surrounded by the unconscious, possibly dead, all alone, in a situation where nothing made sense. She still didn't know what had taken them all out, and for all she knew, it was still on board, watching her! It could be on the bridge right now!

Liarka whipped around as if to catch the mysterious culprit bending over the helm, but to no avail. There was no one there.

To take her mind off things until the new shift arrived (what was taking them so long anyway?), the subcommander stood up and leaned over the shoulder of the lifeless man at Ops, looking for ship status reports.

She scrolled down the deck menus, which listed what could be found on each level of the ship, although she didn't trust the power readouts, what with everything else that had gone wrong lately. Bridge…Main Shuttlebay…transporter rooms on deck six...computer core, deck ten…holodecks, deck eleven…science labs, deck twelve…lower stardrive section: Engineering, Engineering support, fuel storage…

Hold on a second.

Liarka scrolled back up and looked suspiciously at the display again, thinking very carefully. Nothing was making sense. It was almost unreal…

With a growing sense of horror and outrage, Liarka half-shouted, "COMPUTER!"

It bleeped placidly at her.

"End program!"

A pause, during which Liarka felt very, very stupid, and then…the bridge dissolved around her to be replaced by the geometric yellow lines and black surfaces of a Starfleet holodeck.

Liarka gaped at the revealed room, realizing in a second what had happened. She'd been lured into a holodeck program, and had never left! All that time, stuck in this one room. And the woman whose voice she'd followed in here (Stupid! she chastised herself, just the first of a long string of self-derogatory insults) had no doubt slipped out while she was occupied in some other area of the program.

Furious beyond all belief, she made haste to leave the holodeck, wrapped in a haze of green thanks to the blood rising behind her eyes. It was probably thanks to that distraction that she walked straight into a phaser blast that took her straight in the chest.

* * *

Liarka woke, somewhat fuzzy and extremely confused, to a bright light directly above her, shining offensively into her eyes.

"What idiot put that there?" she asked, and was horrified to hear her voice come out between a meaningless croak and a harsh rasp.

"Well, she's fine," a familiar voice snapped, although it was tinged with more than a hint of amusement.

_Do I know that voice?_ Liarka wondered, twisting her head to see who it was. She was somewhat relieved to see her cousin. "Right…" she said thickly. "'s you."

"I should hope so. What the hell happened, Liarka?"

"You know, I've been asking that all day." She stopped, making a face and trying to lick the inside of her mouth like a dog with peanut butter. "Ancestors' gods, my mouth tastes terrible," she croaked. "Is there any water?"

Varka rolled her eyes but left her cousin's bedside. When she returned with a glass of lukewarm water, Liarka was sitting up, clutching at her chest.

"Did you catch them?" she asked curiously, gulping at the water.

"Don't choke yourself. No."

"Why the hell not?"

Varka gave her one of those Looks that said she was on the edge of a very deep and nasty pit, and the redhead shut up.

Finishing the water, Liarka set it aside and swung her legs over the side of the bio-bed, determined not to show that her chest still hurt from the phaser blast.

"So where are you going?"

"To seal off deck eleven. They lured me into a holodeck, Varka! I'm not having that happening again!"

Varka lifted one slanted eyebrow. "That was clumsy."

"Yeah, I know, all right! Just—don't. Whatever you're going to say about it, just don't." She hurried through the doors, which closed behind her before her cousin could shoot her down further.

Completely ashamed of herself, Liarka retreated to a turbolift, where she leaned back against a wall and sighed, shaking her head and seething over her deception. Her reverie was interrupted by the all-too-familiar computer voice.

"Awaiting destination," it prompted her.

Liarka considered briefly. "Deck Eight," she said before it could remind her further. "Battle bridge."

The lift whirred into motion, and this time she watched the deck indicator like a suspicious Baneriam hawk. When it opened on deck eight, Liarka kept her lower body inside while checking out where she had arrived.

It was definitely the ship's battle bridge, although it was currently powered down and dark. The only light came from the open turbolift.

"Computer," Liarka called, and waited for the customary acknowledgement. Receiving it, she ordered, "Restore power to battle bridge."

The room obediently powered up, consoles lighting from within and running lights activated. Bright panels in the ceiling began to glow, casting a white light over the battle bridge. However, the huge viewscreen at the front of the room remained dark.

Liarka was fine with that; there wasn't anything she needed to see. Locating the security and tactical console, she ran her hands over the panels to familiarize herself with them in case they were different from those on the main bridge. They weren't.

"Computer," she prefaced her next command as she entered the appropriate codes into the system, "identify all life-forms on deck eleven."

"There are no life-forms on deck eleven," the computer replied obediently.

"Good. Seal off deck eleven." She entered one of her personal access codes. If the computer accepted it, only she and Varka would have the authority to release the block on the level.

The computer paused briefly as it considered the security code, but eventually decided to accept it. "Sealing Deck Eleven," it reported. A moment later, it confirmed, "Deck Eleven sealed."

The subcommander sighed. Finally, something was going her way. She got up and moved from station to station. She found what she was looking for on her fourth try: Environmental Controls. Accessing the appropriate panel, she used a different access code to order the computer to vent all oxygen from the sealed-off deck and replace it with carbon dioxide, which would knock out but not immediately kill any intruder or disobedient centurion who got foolishly curious about why Deck Eleven had been sealed off.

Task complete, she deactivated the console and stood up, stretching. Her chest still ached from the blast, and again she cursed the Starfleet spy who had somehow managed to stay on board, undetected, throughout the entire process of capturing the ship and auctioning it off, not to mention the Romulan takeover. Certainly the Ferengi had taken precautions to ensure that the ship was empty when they took it. And the DaiMon, Ransk, who had orchestrated the original capture of the starship, had been the worst sort of pirate. He would have known all the hiding places, even on a ship this size.

Liarka turned around, ready to leave the battle bridge, but stopped short, staring.

On the captain's chair, which stood isolated in the center of the room, was a small jet black feline with its paws on the back of the chair, watching her with green-eyed interest.

The subcommander had no idea what to say, so she settled for "What the hell?" for the fifth time in recent memory.

Cautiously, Liarka examined the creature, recognizing it as a Terran domestic cat, albeit a rather large and sleek one. One of her relatives had owned one, imported from Earth, and had doted on it despite the fact that her husband and half her family had proved allergic to it. Liarka had not been susceptible, and had been rather fascinated with the creature, which seemed to have an ego level as high as any Romulan senator.

"What are you doing here?" she asked it, lowering her face to its.

It stared back at her. To her shock, it broke into a very un-feline smile, and squeaked, "I'm going to eat your _toes!_" in a voice that had clearly been subjected to a prolonged dose of helium gas.

Liarka leaped about a foot in the air in surprise, scrambling for the disruptor she'd picked up on her way down to the battle bridge, but by the time she'd gotten it out and aimed, the creature (definitely not a cat, as cats didn't talk, to the best of her knowledge) had disappeared.

She turned in a slow circle, on the lookout for movement, probably close to the floor. To her embarrassment, she couldn't help shifting her feet, although the threatened digits were concealed safely inside heavy boots.

A dash of movement underneath a console startled her into shooting off a round into the floor, but she couldn't tell if she'd hit anything.

Evidently not, as it reappeared on top of the Environmental Controls panel she'd just deactivated, giving her a supercilious look.

Liarka trained her weapon on it, narrowing her eyes. "What are you?"

It didn't answer; no mews, no growls, and definitely no high pitched female voice. With the smug disdain of all cats everywhere, she began to wash her paws. Liarka gaped at it, sure she was being insulted.

"Hello," a second voice, not quite as high, greeted her. The subcommander kept her disruptor aimed at the first cat, only to see a second black feline ooze down from the viewscreen's frame.

"All right, I'm still unconscious," Liarka told it. "No wonder Varka was so nice to me."

"Nope," Black Cat Two said—yes, definitely said. "Guess again."

"Um…Starfleet's enlisting cats?"

"They don't make uniforms in our sizes," a _third_ black cat, this one with a male voice informed her wearily. "Next try."

"Then what are you doing here?!" Liarka shouted.

"We're going to drive you mad!" the first one chirped through its toilet.

The subcommander almost shot it—her—just to shut her up. "Yeah, you've done that, very good. But this is impossible. So if I'm not insane, and I'm not still unconscious, then that means…" She thought briefly. "Oh, _shit_. Computer! End program!"

The bridge blurred, sparked, came back. All three cats giggled. Now they all sounded like they'd been breathing helium gas.

Liarka continued to shout at the computer to the end of letting her out of what she now knew to still be a holodeck. It had always been a holodeck, ever since she stepped through that door on Deck Eleven. The cats continued to snicker at her until she shouted at them to shut up. To her surprise, her unwanted feline escorts obeyed, only to begin a game of tag across the holographic bridge.

The red-haired Romulan stamped, swore, ordered, and took potshots at the cats. She missed. The computer refused to listen.

Liarka tried to hail the ship outside the holodeck, calling for Varka, the Engineering section, the bridge, sickbay, the computer core, the ship-wide address systems. If she was lucky, she got an empty channel. If she was unlucky, more black-cat giggles drifted back across the intercom. She was told twice that they were going to eat her toes. She threatened to stomp on the first cat that tried. They thought that was even funnier.

"So what am I supposed to do?" she finally asked the three that shared the bridge with her. They had finally settled down, one to each chair in the command well, and were watching her as if they owned the place. "Just sit here? Because I am not going to just sit here!"

"Bye then," the one in the captain's chair cheeped at her.

Liarka swore at it and tried to get into the ship's computer—the _real_ ship's computer—via the bridge consoles. She wondered how long it would be until Varka noticed she was missing.

* * *

Quite satisfied with her handiwork, she watched the volatile Romulan woman try to find her way out of the maze she'd entrenched her in, with only the cats a child had invented for company, and examined the mess her nanites had made of the internal sensors. Now all the Romulans on the bridge had was what she chose to give them.

She contemplated what she could throw at them.

She was insufferably pleased with herself, and would have clapped her hands for joy if she'd had any.

* * *

**Disclaimer: **In this chapter, I don't own: _Star Trek: The Next Generation_; original _Star Trek_'s classic 'The Trouble With Tribbles'; anything _Doctor Who_, including demon gas masks, the line about 'that'd be me talking to a metal dog, then,' the tentacle things behind the door, and Barcelona—not the city Barcelona, the _planet_ Barcelona, where they apparently have dogs with no noses; the brilliant TNG episode 'Ship in a Bottle'; the Black Cats of All Doom from the Helium Planet and their obsession with toe consumption; the quote 'Run away! Run away!' from_ Monty Python and the Holy Grail_; _Alice in Wonderland; _or _Alice Through the Looking Glass_. 


	10. Grounded

**Chapter Ten: Grounded**

**Although Lacking Accompanying Visuals, ****the Computer Voice Says:** Last time on _Free Enterprise_, plot track three: The counter-invasion of Farpoint Station began. Due to communications interference, a fleet of shuttlecraft flew down and deposited away teams, which began working their way toward the main building on foot. After a brief exchange of friendly fire, Riker's team was ambushed by hostile forces and captured. On board the _Enterprise_, the crew was distracted by the sudden arrival of more unknown forces, which began shooting at them. And now the conclusion of this plot track.

**ON WITH THE SHOW!**

_In which we explore most possible meanings of the term 'grounded'._

Commander Riker knew he was awake because he hurt too much to be dreaming or unconscious.

He wished he could think of something clever to say, like 'We can't be dead, heaven is quieter than this,' or 'Must have been one hell of a party,' or even 'Quick! Get the license number of that elephant!'

What he did say was, "Ow."

"Welcome back to the land of the living, Commander," a glum voice greeted him. Riker knew he should be able to identify it, but his head was pounding too hard to think. When he tried to open his eyes, he snapped them closed, the better to see the fireworks display behind his eyelids.

"Woozat?" he asked, hoping against hope that the phrase had been intelligible. Against his better judgment, he rubbed his eyes. More fireworks went off, but at least he now knew that he wasn't tied up. That was always a plus.

"Stay still, sir," the glum voice—Geordi? It sounded like Geordi—resumed. "They hit you pretty hard."

"You're telling me." With the hands-down success of his latest effort at speech, Riker tried opening his eyes again, and got a look at his immediate environment.

The light was dim, almost dusky. When he looked around, Riker could see, with a little squinting, what looked like a room or perhaps a cellar. It was packed full of people, most of them wearing Starfleet uniforms. To a man, they were all either sitting on the ground, not moving, or lying unconscious. There was really nowhere for them to go. The room was almost completely full.

"Geordi?" he tried again.

"Here, sir," Geordi replied, and now he could see why the engineer was so unhappy. Which was a right sight better than the man himself could do, if you'll forgive the bad puns. The engineer was sitting at his side, having located his commander by sound alone. Whoever had captured them and put them all in this room had also taken away La Forge's VISOR.

Making an association, Riker reflexively reached for his commbadge. It was gone, along with a strip of fabric. When he took a second look at the rest of the room, he could see no other gold-and-silver glint on anyone else's chest either.

"Are you all right?"

"Been better. They took my VISOR before we were beamed here, so I don't know where we are. Sorry, sir."

Word was beginning to spread that Commander Riker was awake. Despite the press, the collective population of the room had begun to focus on Riker, who found himself the center of attention for at least two hundred and fifty people who all needed leadership, and needed it now.

"All right," Riker said, attempting to get control. "Lt. Commander La Forge, mission report. What happened to the _Enterprise_?"

Before Geordi could speak, several other people in the near vicinity piped up, and for a moment, Riker was lost in a haze of words.

"It was—"

"We didn't—"

"—going to destabl—"

"—of nowhere!"

"—I don't re—"

"It was his—"

"The captain—"

"—escape pods—"

Not wanting to shout over the hubbub, Riker opted rather to use a trick he'd learned about thirty years ago and had been forbidden to use inside since exactly one day after that. Sticking two fingers in his mouth, he whistled shrilly.

The echoes bounced off the walls repeatedly in the sudden void of silence.

Commander Riker jumped in before talk could resume. "Maybe no one was listening," he offered generously, although his listeners would have to be really stupid not to hear the concealed blade in that hypothesis. "_Mr. La Forge, _and Mr. La Forge _only_—mission report."

Geordi sat up a little straighter, and even folded his hands in his lap as if giving a summary at the long table in the observation lounge. "Well, I can't tell you what happened on the bridge, because I had problems of my own down in Engineering that kept me from monitoring the bridge uplink very often.

"I'd say approximately thirty minutes after the shuttlecraft left the hangar bays, we started picking up on an odd flux in one of the backup computer processors. It was only in one of them, but those three update each other every three milliseconds, so it was only a matter of time before whatever it was got into the others. It was only luck we caught it before it spread."

"Geordi, less editorializing. I'd like to be up on the situation before our captors come back."

"Right, sorry. I set a handful of crewmen on the problem and got a glance at the bridge uplink. All seemed calm, if a bit tense, so I didn't worry about it. And then we started getting systems failures all across the board."

"What from?" asked an ensign Riker didn't know. Almost instantly, the kid stopped short, went pink, and clapped a hand over her mouth. Riker gave her a harassed smile.

"Captain Picard started calling at that point, and I didn't have an answer for him either.

"I figured it was linked to the processor error somehow, but it's no quick task going into that system. The computer doesn't seem to like scanning itself, for some reason. We didn't have time to fix the problem at its source, because power was starting to drain from every system except antimatter containment. Life support was going at warp speed trying to keep up, and it was not going to be able to run at that rate for long."

Several people winced.

Despite his blindness, La Forge looked in their general direction, hearing breath drawn in through teeth of all shapes and sizes, and commiserated, "Yeah, you're telling me! I managed to isolate life support with a bit of jiggery-pokery, but not completely. We had no idea where it was going! It was just gone! We tried to stop it, of course, and got the SIF stabilized before the entire ship collapsed on us."

Riker couldn't help but interrupt with: "Is that a technical term I don't know about, jiggery-pokery?"

Geordi La Forge ignored him. "I know that Data wanted power to the sensors, so something was going on outside. We finally stopped the power drain. What was truly awful, though, was that the people I put on checking the computers came up with a result."

Geordi looked in Riker's general direction. "Someone had written in very good code, Commander. And it was done by someone on board. We didn't have time to write it out, either. Captain Picard wanted weapons and shields yesterday."

"Who against?"

"Commander, I just don't know. We got the shields about fifty percent up, and minimal weapons. Then the computer started telling us to evacuate Engineering. I didn't believe it, but then the doors started sliding down. I had just enough time to transfer the Engineering master controls to the bridge substation. Darrin, one of my men, wrote a program a few days ago that let me do that. He was on the bridge, so I figured he could handle his own work."

"Did he do anything else while he was doing that?" Riker growled suspiciously.

Underneath his dark skin, La Forge went pale. "I didn't check."

"Go on. It sounds like you're near the end."

"That's about it, Commander. We were knocked around pretty badly for a while. I heard the captain on the intercom, ordering us to abandon ship."

La Forge looked nervously in Riker's direction in response to the gradually growing sound of teeth grinding. "The shields must have gone down, because I know a transporter effect when I feel one. When we were let out of the beam someone stunned us all right away, and when I woke up my VISOR was gone."

"Thank you, Commander," Riker gritted out. "Does anyone have anything to add? One at a time, please," he added as fifty-six people opened their mouths to speak at once.

No one really did. Various crewmen confirmed the transporter story. Others backed up Geordi's assessment of the damage done to the _Enterprise_. No one knew who had attacked them, where they'd been beamed to, or what had happened to Captain Picard. Or Lt. Commander Data. Or any of the other senior staff.

The longest anyone could remember being conscious in this room was two and a half hours, a figure presented by a fairly young Vulcan man whose black hair and golden shirt had somehow escaped the dust and muss that characterized everyone else. Actually, he recited a long string of numbers that Riker mentally abbreviated to 'two and a half hours' to save brain space.

To wrap up the information-sharing session, Riker briefly aired his own disaster tale. "I can see at least two people from my away team," he concluded. "Anyone else?"

"Here!" A flutter of movement accompanied this—a waving blue hand. "Lt. Savan reporting, sir!"

Riker thought briefly that it was lucky they were all sitting down. The little lieutenant was barely four and a half feet tall.

"No bridge crew?" There weren't.

"What do we do now, sir?" an ensign asked.

That was a really good question, and Riker didn't have an answer readily available. So he did what all good commanders have done for thousands of years: made something up and delegated the rest.

There's a story they tell to the command track students at Starfleet Academy as a situation test. It runs like this:

You, the captain, are cut off from your ship on a hostile planet. On one side of a deep gorge, your side, you will be killed in two hours, after the sun sets. On the other side, you are safe. You have two ensigns, your executive officer, one two-foot length of cable, and a rock. What do you do?

Supposedly, the correct answer was: Say 'Number One, I want a bridge up in two hours.' Then you walk away.

Standing up so that everyone could see him and he could address the entire room at once, he began, "First, we need some form of weapons. Whoever's put us here isn't doing it for our health, and I'd like to have the advantage when they come back to check on us and gloat." He scanned the room, picking out three people whom he recognized as Security personnel. "Stand up, please. I don't care what it is or how you get it. The rules of combat are not important, as of right now. Anyone who has ever been in a really dirty bar fight, go talk to them," he added, pointing. "But not yet. I'm not done.

"Secondly, we need a way out of here. It's possible someone will just open a door for us, but I'd like to get out on our own terms. Let's investigate every square inch of this room. There has to be a weak spot somewhere."

His mind spun frantically. What else could they do? In the patient silence, a soft moan interrupted his train of thought, coincidentally solving it at the same time. "Anyone with medical training more recent than the Academy, focus on getting our injured a little better. The fewer people we have to carry when we get out of here, the better. Understood?"

A chorus of affirmatives answered him.

"Dismissed, then," he said, for lack of anything better, and joined the fledgling security force to volunteer to teach basic aikido.

* * *

"What's going on in there?"

Fetuik winced at the deep, raspy voice of DaiMon Ransk, and then tried to hide that he'd done it. Too late.

"Are you deaf?" Ransk bellowed insultingly, puffed up in triumph and irate about anything seeming even slightly akimbo to his proud moment.

His underling jumped to his feet and snapped to attention, deciding wisely not to answer the foul insult. "DaiMon, sir, the hew-mons are organizing."

"Phah!" Ransk spat. Literally, barely missing the unlucky Fetuik's boots. "The hew-mons have empty pockets and nothing to bargain with. Their organizing won't profit them at all. The cells are bare!"

There was a sheepish lack of response from Fetuik.

The DaiMon looked down at him, eyes squinting almost shut. "The cells _are bare_!" he repeated, daring his subordinate to contradict him.

"Yes, DaiMon," Fetuik answered finally.

Somewhat satisfied, Ransk strode away, back to overseeing the sweeping out of the _Enterprise_, leaving Fetuik to stare glumly at his monitors and watch the humans milling around.

This was the second group of hew-mons to organize themselves and start working together to get themselves out of the cells. After observing them for the entire length of time they'd all been in their separate rooms, Fetuik was willing to attribute the driving force of their unexpected spirit to a handful of people.

The burly man with the hair on his face was one of them. In a different cell, the small, dark haired woman had begun to shout everyone else down and get them working on one goal—the same goal as the man. Not five minutes before the man started his arranging, the Klingon and the few people in the room with him had gotten to work. In yet another cell, a dark woman in a funny hat had talked to her cellmates briefly, and everyone had calmly gone to work.

Fetuik was not as stupid as his boss thought he was. If he had been running this operation, he would have kept everyone unconscious until he could work out who was boss aboard the ship. Then he would have deprived the rest of the crew of all their leaders at once.

Instead, DaiMon Ransk, eager to watch them squirm, had just divided them up at random, coincidentally giving almost every group someone with a spine or a will to lead.

But it was, of course, not Fetuik's place to argue with his DaiMon.

Nor was it his place to point out that at this rate, they'd somehow get out of the cells within a few hours. Although it would be his place to take the flak from that turn of events, if they were still on this worthless rock by then.

Fetuik sighed as another security camera shorted out. Checking on the other two cameras that fed into the bearded man's cell, he watched as the blind man accepted the bits of camera from another hew-mon and an alien he didn't know, exploring the torn circuits and metal with his fingers.

Approximately the same thing was happening in all the deep-underground cells, accessible by only a transporter or a very, very skinny and small system of ventilation shafts. Fetuik couldn't help but think they'd manage to get out somehow anyway.

In two small cells all on their own were the captain and the Betazoid woman, who remained sedated so that she couldn't sense that she couldn't sense anyone else. If she knew they were captured, and that her jailers were around, the fact that they wouldn't show up on her internal radar would narrow down the suspects rather quickly.

But apparently all their other leaders were disseminated among the various cells.

Fetuik looked over his shoulder toward the door and wished very hard that they could leave with the _Enterprise_ soon. These humans were making him nervous.

* * *

It took five and a half hours for Riker's group to escape from their cells, which proved to be only one in a series of adapted caves. After a couple of hours had passed, their efforts were interrupted by a transport of large numbers of ration packs that appeared to have been taken directly from the _Enterprise_ itself.

"I think we're underground," a civilian with a good nose said finally. "This wall smells like soil and stone."

Riker gave his basic aikido group a short practice assignment so that he could go and consult with the woman. "Underground?" he said, excusing and elbowing past the throngs of people who were all trying to be busy. "Damn," he added, thinking back. "Of course. There were tunnels under the original Farpoint Station, but I had forgotten that only part of the way down they turned into life-form. It could be that that cave system goes deeper. Good work, miss!"

He thought briefly before turning to the room at large and cupping his hands over his mouth. _"Savan!"_ he shouted. _"Lieutenant Savan!"_

The noise level in the cell dropped briefly before it sprang back up again, most of them looking for little Lieutenant Savan. The pale blue alien popped into visibility a minute later, perched on someone's shoulders.

"Here, sir!"

He vanished below the press of bodies again. The sudden movements of people abruptly shoved out of the way by something at waist level marked his passage through the room.

When he reappeared at Riker's side, the commander filled him in. "We're probably underground. Now, I can feel an air flow, so there has to be a way for the air to get in and out. They can't be transporting air all the time."

"That would be inefficient," someone said.

"Exactly. Lieutenant, if you stand on my shoulders you should be able to reach the ceiling and upper walls."

"And search for vents!" the lieutenant filled in. "Yes sir!"

"Are there any kids in here?"

Melissa Flores and Clara Sutter waved for attention. Riker grinned at Melissa.

"All right, Number One, find someone tall. Anyone else who's fairly short, meet up with a partner who can carry you. Let's search the ceiling!"

With eight pairs wobbling around the room, being steadied as needed by the people they passed by, they covered the ceiling bit by bit, fingers brushing carefully across the metal panel, looking for irregularities.

Just as Riker was beginning to feel a little foolish at the apparent failure of his plan, a commotion broke out on the opposite side of the room. "Here!" Melissa shrieked. "There's a panel!"

All the pairs converged on that spot. "Make way, make way!" Savan cheered, directing traffic majestically from his lofty perch.

"I can feel the edges of a panel, but I can't get it loose," Melissa explained, tracing her slim fingers through the ridges to show them all where it was. "I could get through this. It's big enough."

"So could I," Savan agreed, watching the newly-revealed outline.

A general chorus of approval greeted this announcement, and they began passing pieces of metal that had been scavenged from the security cameras and other pieces they'd found to the piggyback riders. A group of people had been set to sharpening the pieces of shrapnel against each other, and some of them were quite keen.

There wasn't enough room under one vent for all eight teams to work on it at once, so Riker and Ensign Horth, who was carrying Melissa, stayed at the vent while the others kept searching for other exits.

It took a while; the metal needed frequent honing or replacing and the tall people carrying the others needed to pass their burdens on to somebody else from time to time, but they eventually had three holes in the roof and one through a wall.

"We need four teams of two people each," Riker announced. "No, Melissa, you're not going. Sorry."

"But—" Melissa said, and hushed with only that token protest.

Once four teams had been assembled, the commander gave them their marching orders. "Stay out of sight once you get to the top. Try to get to a communications station and get a message to Starfleet."

"But we were being jammed," a crewman pointed out. "Why would it be any better now?"

Riker grimaced. "Because now they've got what they wanted, Ensign—the _Enterprise_. Best case scenario, they've taken her and gone." He returned to addressing the teams. "If the jamming is still in effect, find a transporter room and get us out of here. If you can't do _that_, then we need weapons and supplies. Try to locate the rest of the crew if you can. Is that clear?"

"Yes sir!" everyone said.

"Good luck."

After the groups had vanished into the ventilation shafts, everyone was at a bit of a loss as to what to do. With their best volley shot, there was nothing to do but wait and relax a little bit, up to and including trying to eat inedible MREs. There were multiple reasons why they were emergency rations, chief among them that it would have to be an emergency before anyone would want to eat them.

"Look on the bright side," Geordi suggested wryly. "They've beamed us some projectile weapons—we can always throw them at whoever comes in." He swung one against the wall to make his point. It—the wall, not the ration brick—went _clang_.

* * *

In the end, they didn't have to mount an assault with MREs. The prisoners in the other cells had come up with their own inventive solutions as well, and the teams from Riker's cell eventually met up with whoever had been sent from the other chambers. After digging the Bandi of Farpoint Station out of wherever they'd been hiding, they managed to get the transporter system working.

After that it was only a matter of time before the entire crew of the _U.S.S. Enterprise_ was gathered in New Farpoint Station proper, madder than hornets and about as busy.

The Station's sensors had confirmed instantly that not only was the _Enterprise_ not in orbit, but also that there was a warp trail matching the _Enterprise_'s emission trace exactly leading out-system. Once it passed Deneb VII, though, it broke off abruptly, as if whoever was on board had taken steps to cover their tracks.

A bit of exploration yielded heaps of things taken from the ship and abandoned landside. They found Geordi's VISOR in a heap of broken furniture and coolant coils. Practically laughing with relief, he snatched it gratefully from the hands of the search leader and ran off to get that message to Starfleet.

Commbadges were _everywhere_, scattered all over the floor and across consoles. Many of them were not in working order due to having been stripped down or taken apart. This was very odd, because commbadges are not that complicated, and are not made of very valuable materials. Certainly they don't hold any secrets.

Deanna Troi, still woozy from the sheer amount of sedative that had been pumped into her, sat down out of the way under doctor's orders, and so it was to her, the only person sitting still, that Spot came up to, demanding Feline Supplement 74 in a loud and imperious voice. She promptly bolted under a console again when Deanna wobbled to her feet, crying "Data, Data, Data!" happily, and would not come out. This was probably encouraged by the group of kids that all decided that they were going to coax her out, an activity instantly _dis_couraged in passing by Commander Riker, who had been in Spot's bad books, not to mention crosshairs, for a while.

All the shuttles had vanished with the ship except for one. The pilot of the shuttlecraft _Blaidd-Drwg,_ one Lieutenant Piper, had somehow gotten wind of the hijacking and had quickly programmed an autopilot course into the little ship's computer, sending it hundreds of miles away before beaming herself into New Farpoint so that the enemy would not think to look for it. A message was sent off to the Bandi city nearest the coordinates to go look for it, and a transporter beam bearing someone who could actually fly the ship back was not far behind.

No one, Bandi or Starfleet officer, had any idea about who had been behind the outrageous turn of events, although they had whole lists of races or alliances it was probably _not_. No one had seen them properly. Any orders or commands they had issued had been done through vocoders. It seemed highly unlikely that a whole ground-based space station, not to mention the flagship of the fleet, had been taken over without even a culprit to pin it on, but that was the way the situation stood. Whoever they were, was the general consensus, they're very good.

The ground-based and shipboard divisions of the crew compared notes. Most of their stories matched Geordi La Forge's account.

Everyone agreed that the ship had been attacked by an unknown vessel, but oddly enough, the hostile ship had not fired at the hull. Rather, the bridge crew attested, they had used a beam that disrupted Starfleet shields if and when it was focused properly.

They managed to avoid disaster for a while, mostly thanks to Ro Laren, whose creative evasive maneuvers had stopped the unknowns from focusing on one area of the shields for too long. Unfortunately, one of her crazier ideas, which culminated in spinning the ship laterally, ended up stressing the engines so badly that they shut down, leaving the _Enterprise_ motionless and vulnerable. The shutdown was better than a core breach, but Ro was still furious with herself, despite the fact that she'd bought them all time.

When the shields went down, people started vanishing from the ship, and first to go, most likely, were Geordi and his engineers, which ruined all chance of getting the engines back up to speed.

Whoever they were, though, they'd had to take the bridge by force. Data had focused the shields on the bridge as the other decks were depopulated, so the invaders had to beam in on a lower deck and come up. That was their best chance at identifying them, but they'd been hooded and cloaked. There hadn't been time to ask names before they started shooting.

Apparently the bridge had been rather damaged, especially when Data was inspired to stand in front of important panels and dodge at the last second, leaving smoking trenches through several consoles.

It hadn't worked for very long though, and it still hadn't inflicted enough damage to keep their enemies from running off with the ship, leaving almost everyone on New Farpoint Station to twiddle their thumbs or scream with impotent fury, depending.

An informal and chaotic head count taken once all the cells had been emptied revealed the absence of the oh-so-helpful computer programmer Glenn Darrin, as well as several other overlooked people who had been stationed in important but unnoticed positions at the time of the attack. Captain Picard grimly ordered a list made up as well as physical descriptions if at all possible, to be transmitted to Starfleet Command with the recommendation of investigation appended to it.

Two days after the crew escaped their prison cells, Starfleet turned up in the forms of the _Excalibur,_ the_ Zhukov,_ and the _Repulse_. They, and assorted brass who had come along via commlink, were not happy.

With a general air of restrained fury, the displaced crew was ordered back to Utopia Planitia for general debriefing and determination of the situation, a combination that failed to add 'and appropriate punishment' but implied it very heavily. They were forbidden to contact their families and even to discuss the situation with the crew of whichever ship they were onboard of.

It was a long, silent, ominous trip.

* * *

_After this point, Chapters Two, Five, and Eight occurred, respectively._

* * *

**Disclaimer:** I own Lieutenant Savan and the way he turned out to be important, as well as a couple of Ferengi I could do without but the story couldn't! But in this chapter, I _don't_ own: the computer voice; any of the humorous things Riker could say in paragraph two; the incredible book _Ender's Game_; fireworks; the _Enterprise_-D or any other starship herein; Farpoint Station, although one could argue that I own _New_ Farpoint; the MREs; various Star Trek characters, aliens, or cats; or anything _Doctor Who_-related that snuck in while I wasn't looking, including one of the humorous things in paragraph two and some interesting technical terms. Also, I swear I didn't make up the situation test story. Really.

**Author's Note:** Well, there is Chapter…what chapter is it? Oh yes, 10! That's a great number. And it really makes me happy to finally have this chapter out! Actually, I'm just happy in general. In the last twelve or so hours I have been to a bookstore, bought almost more books than I could easily carry, impressed my mom with my driving, heard from a friend, drunk four and a half cans of Dr. Pepper and counting, eaten a Crunch chocolate bar and a handful of brownies, watched the making-of for one of my favorite _Doctor Who_ episodes, and ON TOP OF THAT, watched four HOURS of _Deep Space Nine_! So, LEGALLY, I am not tripping out. But I am running on a combination of caffeine, sugar, and endorphins. For your sake, I hope you are one-tenth as happy as I am right now.


	11. Daisy, Daisy

**Chapter Eleven: Daisy, Daisy…**

_Music and dancing! Or…Deep Thought, audio terrorism, more fire, a holodeck sojourn, threats, and small bytes._

**ON WITH THE SHOW!**

On the bridge of the _Enterprise_-D, Commander Varka Sa'tkir sat in the captain's chair, folding her hands under her nose in thought. There had to be a pattern, a reasonable explanation for all this!

They were steadily losing contact with outlying areas of the ship. As, essentially, the starship's brain, this was inexcusable. And Varka was worried about what those fringe areas might be doing during the current lapse.

At the moment, the bridge was chaos. Spooked more than any of them would care to admit by their commanding officer's silence, the centurions and decurions were scurrying around trying to look useful, and not as if they were completely at a loss. The fact remained, however, that they had been almost completely locked out of the computer.

Varka looked up from her thoughts, irked by the cacophony. Rising to her feet, she declared, "Silence."

It was not a particularly loud word, nor was it said in a particularly angry tone of voice. It simply assumed that as it was said, so would it be done.

All activity on the bridge screeched to a halt, achieving not only silence, but stillness in the bargain. The only motion was that of heads turning to regard Varka with wide eyes.

"There _shall_ be silence," repeated Varka Sa'tkir imperiously. "Return to your stations. Monitor the situation. Take no further action independently."

She paused. "Understood?"

Around the bridge, there was a perfect moment of desperate cogitation as the irresistible request met the immovable order.

Into that moment, Varka dropped an _only slightly_ smug, "Good."

The bridge complement saluted, and ran to follow her orders.

It would have worked really well, been really effective, if the computer hadn't taken another shot at malfunctioning and begun to broadcast music ship-wide.

Varka, determined to ignore the sweeping orchestra a la _really_ heavy-duty percussion set, sat back down in the captain's chair. Something, in all this mess, was out of place. Not that everything wasn't going wrong…it was more that she was missing something.

Her race's Vulcan cousins had perfected, in the Empire's opinion, the fine art of being annoying, but another thing they had indubitably gotten right was the practice of logic as a problem-solving technique. Varka herself would not be willing to give up her freedom to get angry, overreact, crack jokes, pick on her cousin, sulk, or, if it came to that, laugh hysterically, but she wouldn't argue with results, unless they were Liarka's. But that was all beside the point.

_All right,_ Varka thought to herself, _what do I know?_

Fact: Someone is sabotaging the ship.

Hypothesis: There is no non-Romulan presence aboard the _Enterprise_.

Conflict: Well, who's bloody well doing it, then?

Possibility: Action by agents of the Tal Shiar, which I know are on board.

The problem with that, she realized, was that not only had they been kept out of any important areas, the computer programmers had come through on their assignment of inventing a surveillance device, and Liarka had reported that besides taking notes, none of them had done anything suspicious.

Varka wondered if she could trust Liarka, and regretted the thought almost immediately. Liarka was untrustworthy in the precise sense of the word, but some things were undeniable, and that was her loyalty. Add to that she needed Varka's goodwill to survive in the Empire, and the commander was virtually positive that Liarka was on her side.

So, not Liarka. Not the Tal Shiar spies. And there was no trace of a Federation agent on board, either.

So where did that leave her?

Varka stared at the viewscreen as the intrusive music changed to slightly louder performance by a wind instrument, and prayed that it was showing the right view. Earlier, the computer had blithely announced a change of course to the Barcelona system, and it had taken half an Earth hour and quite a lot of yelling at the computer to persuade it to head back towards the Neutral Zone.

She felt like she was missing something. Something really obvious. It was on, as the Earth saying went, the tip of her tongue… She glanced down at the control panel on her arm in a fruitless search for information.

Was it something she'd thought recently?

Varka took a long, cold look at the situation and the information she had, and started from scratch.

It was staring her in the face.

Literally.

The Commander hardly dared to think too hard, lest the idea pop like a soap bubble.

_Maybe…_ she thought…

_Maybe…_

_We're dealing with not a human agent, but…_

…_a computer._

_THE computer._

_All by itself._

Staring raptly at the stars warping across the viewscreen, Varka examined her idea. Could the computer really be that clever?

Unfortunately, the answer was yes. As computers in every civilization in the Alpha and Beta Quadrants got more and more complex, they also paralleled biological thought patterns to an alarming degree. Computer terms showed up in psychology practice, not to mention the layman's idea of how a mind worked. And Varka was willing to bet that there was an emergency override in the _Enterprise_'s ridiculously complex computer system that would, in the event of a takeover, make the hijackers' lives living hell.

But…she had thought that they'd had to _persuade_ the computer. The computer had _decided_ to annoy them all with the music, and the replicators. Someone with perfect, inhuman control over the ship's sensor readouts had faked an attack.

Someone had very deliberately acted against Liarka's hunting party, without leaving any traces. They were being locked out of the computer.

And who better to do that than an intelligent computer?

Based on the recent past, it was a really good bet. The music was getting really annoying now. On a seemingly random basis, it was switching between pieces that, had Varka been studying Earth popular culture carefully, would prove to be taken from no less than a musical book adaptation, an Asian animated series, three popular science fiction TV shows, and the Battle Hymn of the Republic. She didn't know any of that, but it was incredibly annoying anyway.

And that was in addition to the computer failures, the sensor ghosts, the explosions, the psychological warfare against Liarka's posse of saboteur hunters, _and_ the replicator problems that had them all eating seafood and fizzy drinks for a while.

Varka found the idea of an anti-takeover program highly likely. However, her imagination took the concept of a resistance-fighting computer one step further, leading to the uncomfortable train of thought that asked:

"What if the computer knows what it's doing? What if it's doing it on its own?"

Varka Sa'tkir did not want to deal with a conscious computer.

She didn't think she had a choice.

Now, how to deal with this, she wondered.

First of all, she was not going to air this theory, just in case it was _wrong_, which would be embarrassing. Second of all, she wasn't going to tell anyone else, because it might be right, and then she'd get the credit.

Glancing around at her bridge crew, which was pretending to be hard at work, Varka formulated an excuse and the beginnings of a battle plan.

She knew, from her studies both before and after her commission and command, that Starfleet phaser rifles were linked to the ship's computer; attempting to fire one on a too-powerful setting would result in either failure or an alarm. Luckily for Varka, she didn't have a Starfleet phaser rifle; she had a proper Romulan disruptor. It was sheathed on the right side of her belt at this very moment.

Earlier on, while harassing the computer programmers about their productivity output, which had been in the negative figures, Varka had visited the computer core, so she knew where it was. As she'd put everyone on alert status after the trouble started, it was unlikely that there would be anyone there.

Standing up, the Commander surveyed the bridge, accompanied by the cheerful strains of 'Row, Row, Row, Your Boat'. Ignoring the children's song, she stared levelly at the highest-ranking officer on the bridge who wasn't also a known Tal Shiar spy until he glanced up, met her gaze, and snapped to attention, saluting.

"Centurion," she told him bluntly, "if the situation changes in any way, you are to contact me at once. Is that understood?" It was a custom in the Romulan fleet to never refer to their subordinates by name. They were there to do their duty, not to bond into one big happy family like the Starfleet people believed.

He saluted again. "Understood, Commander."

The commander didn't spare him another glance. Nor did she let him ask where she was going, why she was leaving the bridge, and what she intended to do there. It was none of his business.

Drawing her disruptor, she racked up the charge before she even headed for the turbolift. She was a little uncertain about using the turbolift car—it was a long way down if her computer foe decided to drop her. She could only hope that the computer wouldn't see anything odd about her actions, because it would definitely notice if she started climbing through maintenance tunnels. Also, it would take a lot longer.

In case the computer _was_ keeping an eye on her, the commander decided to establish an alibi. "Subcommander Ki'riin is taking too long," she shot at her temporary replacement, who was hovering by the captain's chair, not quite willing to sit down. "Call Deck Twelve. Get her men to tell you where she went and relay that information to me. Do it before I get there myself."

She didn't give him a chance to reply. He would do it, but it wouldn't matter, because she wasn't going to deck twelve, and she wasn't looking for Liarka. Disruptor ready to fire, Varka left the bridge.

A bit belatedly, Varka wondered if essentially lobotomizing the computer would ruin every chance they had of getting back across the Neutral Zone.

The point was moot. If she didn't do something pronto, they'd be lucky to get away alive at all.

* * *

Liarka was close to giving up. Actually, she'd tried a few times, simply seating herself on whatever chair or surface was available at the time and refusing to move, but she'd gotten bored.

She was still fuming over being tricked into the holodeck. Not only could she not find the door, the few times she had, it had turned out she was still inside the holodeck anyway. Oh, it was frustrating! There seemed to be no way out.

Gritting her teeth furiously, the volatile subcommander pulled out her disruptor again and blasted the landscape, a bloody green forest that teemed with life. It was, granted, more interesting than the dusty brown and grey town she'd wandered through for a while before being attacked by strange human men in stupid hats. She had shot them with no little relish before the environment shifted to here.

So far she'd been attacked by no less than four cheerful black cats. They were the only common element to all the programs. Liarka was willing to bet they _hadn't_ been part of the original subroutines.

She received only a second's warning before the holodeck changed again. Greatly tempted to close her eyes by the nauseating whirling of background and landscape that seemed to be for her benefit alone, Liarka forced herself to stay alert. It had been annoying enough being shot at by primitive projectile weapons once; ancestors' gods knew what would jump out at her this time, even if it was only little black cats.

No felines were in evidence when the scene settled.

Surveying her new domain, Liarka had to admit that she'd preferred the forest. She appeared to be within the confines of a pre-warp city. The street beneath her boots was made of roughly square-shaped rock; the word 'cobblestones' occurred to her. It was lined with wall-to-wall buildings on either side and filled with people bustling about in every direction at once.

Of course, Liarka was standing in the middle of it all. Her alertness paid off as she was nearly run down by a large beast of burden and the cart it was pulling behind it. The man driving the contraption yelled at her. She didn't understand his accent, but the message was clear. Scrambling out of the way as quickly as she could, Liarka yelled a curse at his rapidly retreating back in a dialect he wasn't likely to recognize either, adding an extra expletive on behalf of his beast.

With her heart rate gradually slowing, Liarka realized for the first time that it was raining—a light drizzle that showed every sign of being there for the rest of eternity. It was annoying rather than drenching, but in the last few hours, Liarka had been spooked, shot at, tricked, and had things blow up in her face. She had also been threatened by cats.

On top of all this and everything else, the rain was too much. Pressing her slim body against the wall to get out of the mass of humans—who, she realized, smelled of too many other humans and industrial city—the Romulan subcommander scrambled for a place to get out of the rain.

Finally, after being pushed into the wall, stepped on, and (invoking a mix of horror, disgust, and hysterical laughter) propositioned, she managed to find a spot in an alleyway wedged between the wall and a large blue box that looked out of place in a way she couldn't quite articulate. She didn't worry about it. It was no weirder than half the things she'd encountered in the depths of the holodeck. Ye _gods_ and little demons—where did the humans come up with this stuff?

Leaning against the box and drawing her knees up to her chest, Liarka settled in for the long sulk, glaring ferociously at a tall, thin man who was watching her attentively from across the street. It didn't seem to put him off, even when her sharp ears heard that his companion was informing him that he was being rude.

This mission was supposed to make her career. By showing that yes, she could follow orders, she could accomplish a goal—she could, in short, behave—her reputation, which she'd put some effort into trashing, was supposed to be restored. She would be able to serve the Romulan Star Empire properly, most likely under her cousin Varka's command, where she would be most reliable.

Why, oh, why, then, would it have to be a demon ship they were sent to fetch back?

Everything had just gone wrong. From being initially outbid and having to forcibly remind Ransk and whatever rich idiot had bought the _Enterprise_ away from them of their agreement all the way to being locked out of all the military secrets and useful information locked away in the computer's database, it just hadn't worked.

Liarka wanted out—out of the holodeck, off the ship, back to her familiar always-in-trouble, seat-of-her-pants career. She was ready to be done with this cursed ship and their jinxed mission.

She heaved a sigh, wiping drizzle from her hair and eyes. This had to stop, but Liarka Sa'tkir was out of ideas.

As she trailed her fingers idly along the cobblestones, they flickered beneath her touch, causing her to sit up attentively. When she looked around, she could see grid pattern appearing through the edges of the scene.

Hardly daring to hope, Liarka jumped to her feet, setting her hand on her much-depleted disruptor. Was this another trick, or was she finally getting out of here? Had Varka finally noticed, or were her captors letting her out so they could torture her more directly? Or maybe, the thought occurred to her, whether she escaped or not didn't matter anymore. She could only hope that when she'd ordered life-support to deck eleven cut, it had been to the holographic deck eleven, not the real one.

A faint buzzing that had been in the background for a while screamed up the scale to an ear-splitting shriek of overloading circuitry and stressed machinery. The holodeck background sputtered and screamed, collapsing.

As the scene abruptly, finally, fizzled out, to be replaced by gold lines over black and the lingering smell of the urban population, a half-furious, half-frightened voice she vaguely recognized shouted over the internal communications system:

_"STOP!"_

* * *

The turbolift doors swished open placidly on Deck Ten, and Varka, with no one to see her, jumped out as quickly as she could. Being suspended in a tiny metal can controlled by a computer that might just want to kill her had been nerve-wracking.

Disruptor ready, she hurried down the hallway in the direction of the computer core access room, forcing herself not to sprint. She had spent so long looking out for a human adversary that the revelation of an enemy who was _literally_ all around her was far, far worse for her nerves.

The lights began to flicker threateningly as she proceeded down the corridor. Varka ignored them, determined not to be dissuaded by smoke and mirrors.

Luckily for her, Varka had been down here recently. Otherwise, she would have been completely lost when the light panels completely failed in front of her, leaving her road pitch dark.

The hall behind remained pointedly lit. As if to drive the point home, the nearest turbolift door swished open and _meep_ed invitingly at her.

Varka gave it one imperious look, and then ignored it. The doors shut again after a few seconds, and the commander could hear the turbolift car whirr away.

The Romulan woman gazed into the darkness ahead of her. "No," she said. "I don't care."

And she marched forward, activating the display on her disruptor. It provided little enough light, but even the little glow was useful, not to mention comforting. Besides, Varka couldn't help but think that the light was another symbol of her defiance.

It also blew any cover she had. Before, she had dealt for the _Enterprise_. But now, she was coming to deal _with_ the _Enterprise_ herself.

Carefully negotiating her way along the darkened corridors, Varka finally reached the computer core access room only to discover that the door was locked.

It figured. She didn't care. Running her thumb along the charge indicator, she raised her disruptor and cut a Varka-sized hole in the door.

When the edges had cooled, Varka Sa'tkir stepped through her custom-made entryway and into the core. Unlike the rest of the deck, it was lit softly, the hardware—the bare bones and muscle of the central computer—glowing softly and whirring faintly as it worked. The computer never slept.

For a moment, Varka just stood and stared. Something about it amazed her. It wasn't that she'd never been inside a computer core before, for she had visited the core of her warbird's computer, and once she had been taken through the core of a full-sized _D'Deridex_ class bird. But those Romulan computers looked and sounded different than the Starfleet ones, and each little new thing is its own wonder.

Varka did not fancy waiting for the computer to get bored, and there were no eyes to stare down. So she cut right to the chase and leveled her disruptor at the nearest wall of hardware.

Almost instantly, the whine of processing machinery changed. Seconds later, the computer voice informed Varka directly, "You're rude."

Praying that her voice wouldn't shake, the commander deliberated for a moment and then retorted with, "Who are you?"

"No, who are you? You don't belong here."

The voice, she noticed, was slightly different from the run-of-the-mill computer readouts that were normal for any computer access around the ship. This voice was slightly younger, but no less imperious.

She hesitated to ascribe emotions to it, but _she_ (all ships were she) sounded distinctly peeved.

Keeping her disruptor leveled, Varka persisted, "How long has Starfleet been commissioning sentient ships?"

"Not telling," the computer voice responded instantly. Varka mentally downgraded the supposed age of the intelligence to about ten Earth years.

Coolly, Varka fired her disruptor, cutting a swath through the nearest wall. "You will tell me."

The computer did not respond verbally. Instead, machinery whirred at furious speeds. Varka felt prickles running down her spine. She was betting her life on the hypothesis that the computer could not blow up any interfaces to take her out of the picture; it/she would only harm herself. But that wouldn't stop her from removing all the air… Varka was comforted, ever so slightly, by the fact that the computer couldn't just open an airlock—they were literally in the heart of the ship. Any attempt to remove the internal atmosphere would take a while.

She hoped her pocket communicator hadn't been hijacked by the computer yet. Being able to call for help would be her last resort.

Just as Varka's anxiety was getting truly uncomfortable, the computer voice recited, sullenly, "U.S.S. Enterprise-D, sixth Federation starship to bear the name, a Galaxy-class vessel launched and commissioned in 2363 from Utopia Planitia in Mars orbit. Commanded by Captain—"

Varka cut her off with a shout. "I know that! That's the ship's history! Who are you? You're the computer, right?"

"Affirmative," she agreed.

"Since when have Federation computers been conscious?"

The comm speaker produced a very convincing example of a scornful human snort, no doubt saved from some transmission or holodeck program. "I'm tens of thousands of times more intelligent than you, and you claim to be conscious. Why can't I?"

Varka had no answer, so she switched tactics. "You've been sabotaging our mission. Why?"

For once, she got a straight answer. "I'm not going to Romulus. And you can't make me."

"I can't deny that," Varka was forced to admit. "Why didn't you just kill us all?"

The computer produced a jumble of different quotes, all in different voices. "Thou shalt not kill. The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few. Violence is the last resort. Scare them away."

_Fantastic,_ the Romulan woman thought through the cacophony. _An intelligent computer with a moral code._

Varka, however, had no time for human morals imposed on a starship's mind. Instead, she raised the disruptor that she'd briefly lowered. The _Enterprise_'s quoting cut off abruptly.

"We will go to Romulus," she declared with authority. "You will cause no further incidents, and resume your normal function. And you will do it now."

For a moment, there was silence.

And then there was:

"_NO._"

Varka ran her thumb along the gauge, fine-tuning it to a narrow beam that would burn through almost anything, and fired.

_"STOP!"_ the ship shrieked, a cry heard through every corridor, maintenance tunnel, air event, storage chamber, and room.

Varka did not stop, closing her ears to the chaos. As scientifically fascinating as a sentient computer might be, it remained a _Federation_ computer, and before long, she had no doubt that she would overrule what she had learned and been taught, just like her makers, and begin fighting back in earnest.

Over the _Enterprise_'s screams of rage, she sliced through the biggest computer bank in sight. She wished she knew which ones contained the higher programming centers, or even if they were adjacent to this room. She was performing brain surgery, blindfolded, with a gun—which did not bode well for her chances of success.

Howling with fury, the computer triggered the red-alert klaxon over the entire ship. At the same time, the abandon-ship sequence awakened, steadily repeating that this was not a drill.

"Get out!" the _Enterprise_ yelled at Varka. "I am done with all of you—" She trailed off into creepily human screams.

Varka stood her ground, squinting against the input of heat, disruptor energy, and the fires that were breaking out all around her, and kept her disruptor firing, even as the room caught fire and the smoke began to choke her.

She would not go.

It could have been seconds or minutes later when the door hissed open. Varka could barely hear it over the noises of disruptor, alerts, and fire. Indeed, she only noticed when a familiar voice shouted over the clamor: "_Varka_! What the hell are you doing?"

Varka twisted her head around to see a battered and gaping Liarka in the doorway. She was covered with dirt and soot, and her uniform was torn. In the firelight, her red hair positively glowed—or maybe that was all the free energy rocketing around the room. Varka kept her disruptor to bear, but shouted back, "It was the computer! All along, it's alive, cousin, it thinks!"

Liarka kept gaping, glancing between what remained of the computer banks and her wild-eyed, raving cousin. For a moment she questioned which one of them was the stable one.

"Your disruptor, cousin!" Varka yelled. "Help me—we can cripple it!"

After a moment more of hesitation, Liarka snatched her rifle from its holster and dodged the fire and fallen debris to stand on her commander's left side, raising the barrel of her gun so that the beams would be as close together as possible.

Varka gave her a grateful look before turning to look back at her target.

…whereupon Liarka jerked her hand sideways, smashing the disruptor haft against the other woman's temple.

Liarka had strong arms—Varka collapsed immediately. Her cousin caught her on the way down, juggling cousin and disruptor for a frantic second before giving up and dropping her weapon. Lifting the unconscious woman as best she could, the red-haired Romulan spared one precious second to stare into the exposed depths of the computer.

And then she fled as fast as she could.

A lifetime of getting in trouble had left Liarka with very good judgment…at least when it came to getting the hell out of Dodge.

* * *

Varka hated headaches.

From what she could discern through the pain, she was in a crowd, as well as being in a vehicle of some type, most likely a spacecraft.

Also, her head was killing her.

Reflexively, she reached up to, against all common sense, prod the affected area, and received for her pains an extra spurt of agony. She bit down on her tongue to hold back the yelp, which didn't make life any better.

"Sorry, Commander," someone whispered next to her ear. Determinedly, Varka opened her eyes. She was indeed in a spacecraft, a Romulan spacecraft. She breathed a sigh of relief. She hadn't realized just how much she had hated…

…the _Enterprise._

_That's_ right…

Looking towards the source of the sheepish whisper, Varka aimed her best Glare of Protracted Painful Death at Liarka, who was crouching beside her. She realized that she was in a chair…her chair.

They were back on the warbird!

"Status!" the Commander demanded, before she could say 'What happened?' She was really proud of herself for not saying 'where am I'. She'd figured that one out herself, thank you.

Liarka backed up so that she'd have room to salute. "We've evacuated the _Enterprise_, Commander."

"Why the hell?!" Not grammatical, but it got her message across.

"Complete systems failure, sir," Liarka looked at her reproachfully, for only the two of them to see. "Unknown cause…sir."

Growling, Varka jumped to her feet, trying not to make it too obvious that she was holding on to the chair arms for support. "Viewscreen on."

As the large screen flickered to life, Liarka continued, "We are leaving the main shuttlebay."

She was quite right. The edges of the huge door were just slipping away behind the sensors' view. In front of them, she could see open space.

"Life forms detected, Commander," one of the centurions reported. "Forty-seven separate escape pods, from the _Enterprise_.

Touching the wound on the side of her head gently, and making a mental note to scream at Liarka as soon as she felt up to the volume level, Varka commanded, "Beam the ones in range on board. Get the others with the tractor beam."

"Aye, sir!" several Romulans shouted, and went to work. Varka returned to her chair, swiveled it around, and stared at Liarka. That's all, just stared.

Liarka shuffled her feet, looking ready to sink through the floor and die in a dark corner. Her cousin didn't let up until the officers reported that the roster had been filled. Everyone was on board.

Varka was actually a little peeved that the computer had been so…Starfleet. Just like them to leave all of their enemies alive. It made little sense to her.

"Status of the _Enterprise_," she ordered, turning her chair to face forward again. Behind her, she was willing to swear she heard Liarka breathe a sigh of relief.

"She's just sitting there," the officer reported, baffled.

"Main viewer," Varka commanded. She was obeyed.

The Commander glared at the starship ahead of them. During the course of the escape pod rescue run, they'd maneuvered around, on thrusters, to the port side of the big ship, and were hovering on a level with it.

_Her,_ some treacherous corner of Varka's mind whispered.

Without warning, the _Enterprise_'s engines geared up. Sound did not carry in space, of course, but Varka could imagine the humming as it—she—leapt into warp.

"Course and heading?" the commander demanded. "Where's she headed?"

A frantic second elapsed before someone reported, "Nowhere! There's nothing in that direction! Certainly not Federation space!"

"Follow her!" Varka cried, pounding a fist on the back of the helmsman's chair.

The poor man obeyed as quickly as possible, but the warbird didn't move.

Varka was this close to yelling "Make it go!" like a Pakled, but refrained. Barely. Instead, she pounded the nearest comm link.

_"Engineering, report!"_

She could hear the hysterical note in the woman's voice as the engineer responded, "Scanning now, Commander…Sir, scanner readings show that the warp and impulse engines have been completely isolated! They're not connected to the ship at all! They're stable, but…they look like they've been melted…or scraped away…or…chewed?"

Half an hour later, when the chief engineer presented her with an irreparable pair of engines and Petri dish full of dead nanites, Varka threw her head back and screamed with absolute, helpless fury.

Somewhere, she _knew_, that gods-damned ship was laughing at her!

* * *

**Author's Note:** OK, I've just got to say this: OMIGOSHTHENANITESHAVEEATENTHEENGINE! (points and laughs)

**Disclaimer:** I disclaim: _2001: A Space Odyssey_, which immortalized 'Daisy, Daisy…' in the annals of sci-fi; all things _Sherlock Holmes_, including London; "A Fistful of Datas" and "Encounter at Farpoint"; _The Hitchhiker's Guide_ series; any cowboy hats; and I still don't own either the planet Barcelona _or_ a time machine in clever disguise as a big blue police box. I don't own any fizzy drinks, because I drank most of them, or any seafood, because it's disgusting. I disclaim the 1812 Overture; _The Planets_; the Battle Hymn of the Republic; the theme music to: _Rurouni Kenshin_, _Doctor Who_, _Star Trek_, and Joss Whedon's _Firefly_; or anything _Phantom of the Opera_. I also don't own _Row, Row, Row Your Boat._ (For the record, I also don't own any Tennessee whiskey. Ye gods, how drunk were they?)


	12. All At Sea

**Chapter Twelve: All at Sea**

**Author's Bookkeeping Note:** If you read Chapter Eleven within a few days of it being first posted, the title has changed. _Free Enterprise_ is beginning to remind me more and more of _2001: A Space Odyssey_, which is not a bad thing, as it is my second-favorite movie in the universe. (If you haven't seen it, go watch it! Now! You can read this later. Priorities are priorities.) HAL is my favorite character, so he has significantly influenced milady _Enterprise_.

**Author's Real Note:** Did YOU get to the _Menagerie_ event? I did! It was great! Best $12.50 I've spent since my last trip to the bookstore.

**ON WITH THE SHOW!**

_Bloodhounds, Blind Man's Bluff, cultural comparisons, stupid suggestions, the lesser of two evils, and an alliance._

When the call came down from the bridge, Picard was trying to get some sleep.

It wasn't even as if anything had been happening. For the last four days after slipping the Starfleet loop with the help of Captain Stock's _Antigone_, the _Spartacus_ had been barreling toward the Romulan Neutral Zone. After they'd cleared the Torchwood Field, it had turned out to be an eerily silent trip.

"Bridge to Captain Picard," the intercom crackled in the darkness.

The rogue crew had been compacted into as few living areas as decently possible aboard _Spartacus_ so that less power could be used, but it went without saying that Captain Picard got a room of his own. However, it could have passed for a closet aboard the _Enterprise_.

Picard opened his eyes, responding without the slightest hint that he had been asleep. In truth, he hadn't been. "Picard here. Go ahead."

It was Data's voice. "Captain, we've detected trace energy that may be the remnants of a warp signature."

The captain didn't wait for the invitation. "I'm on my way. Picard out." Swinging his legs over the side of his cot-sized bed, he fumbled briefly for his boots and pulled them on. Starfleet captains learned very quickly that if any situation was at all likely to arise, it was best not to change out of one's uniform and into nightclothes. More than one captain had ended up dashing to the bridge in his skivvies, and female captains usually gave up on anything personal before long. Picard had declined to learn the lesson in person and had taken the good advice.

Very quickly, not more than thirty seconds by turbolift, he made the short trip from quarters to bridge. The _Spartacus_ did not have a captain's ready room, or he would have camped out in there to save space and be closer to the action. Picard had really enjoyed that luxury, and missed having a ready room.

Unconsciously, he tugged his uniform top down as he stepped off the 'lift. "Report," he ordered crisply. At the conn, Data didn't turn around, immersed in computer work. It was Geordi La Forge who caught him up on events.

"Captain, we've run across a faint signal. Looks like a warp trail."

"The _Enterprise_?" Picard looked over Data's shoulder as the android officer continued to work.

"Definitely a Starfleet ship," Geordi reported triumphantly. "And from what we can tell so far, the engines are powerful enough that it could well be the _Enterprise_. Data's refining the sensors now, but it might not be enough."

"We can but hope, Mr. La Forge," Picard said with a faint smile. "Good work."

Data abruptly rose and moved to another console, one of the ones set into a wall alcove. "Geordi," he called back over his shoulder, "I require your assistance."

"Excuse me, Captain," La Forge added politely to Picard, already in motion. The captain nodded with restrained enthusiasm as the two officers bent over a panel together.

They spent nearly half an hour working over consoles and making comm calls down to other areas of the ship, cursing the entire time the lack of a decent Stellar Cartography lab. The _Spartacus_ was simply too small to possess such a room, one of the most visually impressive aboard the _Enterprise-D_.

Finally, despite this lack, the Lieutenants Commander and assorted people downstairs came up with a trail for Ro Laren, who'd evicted the on-duty helmsman as soon as the Starfleet grapevine had sprung into operation. The poor man was currently hovering at the back of the bridge trying to find something to do on one of the auxiliary consoles so that he wouldn't be asked to leave to make room for the other officers flooding onto the bridge on flimsy pretexts. Most of them had been politely asked to leave, with the exceptions of the senior officers such as Riker and Troi.

"Course plotted and laid in," Ro said, dashing off the last few instructions with a triumphant flourish. Using that flamboyant gesture to propel herself around, she and her chair turned as a unit to face a determinedly seated Captain Picard. "Captain, the trail leads straight into the Romulan Neutral Zone."

Picard nodded grimly. "Mr. Data," he called, "is the _Spartacus_ capable of intercepting the _Enterprise_ before she reaches the Neutral Zone?"

Evidently, Data had already considered this, for he did not even pause before reporting, "At maximum warp, the _Spartacus_ will not be able to rendezvous with the producer of this warp trail before it crosses the border. However, odds exist for the ship being forced to halt at one of the checkpoints before entering the Zone."

"What if they don't?" Counselor Troi asked the question beginning to loom in everyone's minds.

"We can discuss it _en route_," Picard interrupted. "Ensign Ro, engage," he ordered, punctuating the command with his habitual gesture. "Mr. La Forge, keep the engines at full capacity."

"Aye, aye, sir," Geordi replied, jumping to his feet. Data mimicked him, with somewhat less obvious enthusiasm.

"Captain, I believe I would be of more use in Engineering."

"Granted." Captain Picard gestured them both towards the turbolift. "Dismissed." He glanced around the bridge, eyes lighting on the displaced helmsman as the pair left, already discussing ways of keeping the core output safely balanced. The phrase 'safety margin' seemed to be in evidence. "Lieutenant, take Ops. Time to the Neutral Zone?"

The man nodded jerkily and took a seat, consulting his readouts even as he did. "Two hours, forty-seven minutes," he reported.

"Begin a half-hour countdown, starting at the two-hour-thirty-minute mark," Picard added.

"Aye, sir."

"Mr. Worf."

"Sir?" the Klingon rumbled.

"I believe the Lieutenants Commander managed to get their subspace scanner up and running. Monitor the transmissions from the border."

He pulled up his console and checked the readings. "The _Enterprise_, as it is likely to be, is scheduled to cross in, I see, one hour and five minutes. We have no choice but to break subspace silence. An hour before that mark, begin hailing the border stations, warning them not to let the _Enterprise_ through. Scramble the signal so that they will be unable to determine where the signal originates."

The counselor waited until she was sure that Picard was through giving orders before posing her question. "If the _Enterprise_ does cross, will the Romulans consider it an act of war?"

Picard drew in a deep breath, hands folding tensely. "Knowing the Romulans, Counselor, it is very likely."

"Knowing the Romulans," Worf echoed from the tactical station, bitterly, but not without an air of respect, "they'll call it an act of war, use the _Enterprise_ to retaliate, and then claim they captured it on their side of the border."

"Giving them the right not only of salvage," Picard finished, "but of wartime capture."

Riker scowled at the viewscreen as if it were to blame. "We'd never get it back then."

"Then you have no confidence in the border stations." It was not a question.

The first officer snorted. "Those stations have been useless for over a century—a hundred and three years, if I remember my history correctly. The very first time the Romulans came out of their sulk after the first Earth-Romulan War, all those stations were good for was to get blasted to bits and scream for help."

"And help arrived, Number One," the captain reminded him gently. "An _Enterprise_ beat them that time. An _Enterprise_ can do so again."

"Yeah, but we don't _have_ an _Enterprise_," Will Riker pointed out grimly. "_They_ do."

* * *

Thirty-two minutes before the _Spartacus_ crossed the border, she came to an unexpected stop.

"Ensign, report," Picard said in surprise, rising from his chair to take command of the situation.

"The trail just ends, sir," the lieutenant at Ops reported.

"Ends?" Riker repeated, surprised. He stared at the screen. "Then where is she?"

"Unknown, sir." He didn't like saying it, but what else was there to say? It was true.

Picard and his first officer stared at the viewscreen for a few seconds before the former slapped his commbadge. "Bridge to Engineering."

"La Forge here."

"We've lost the warp trail. Theories?"

"Lost it?" Geordi repeated. "Well, she could still be in the area, traveling under impulse. Are there any anomalies within impulse range that could cloud the sensors?"

Ro checked. "No sir," she reported, trusting that her voice would be picked up by the captain's commbadge. "This part of the sector's clear. Part of the reason the Neutral Zone runs near here is that nobody wants it. There's no value, except for bragging rights."

"Thank you, Ensign," Picard discouraged any further editorializing. "Mr. La Forge?"

"Well…" The engineer paused. "If they stopped here for a while, they might have had time to alter the warp core signature, but they must have a genius engineer on board. Only someone who understands the system perfectly could do that in less than a day, and even then, they'd have to have a full team working with them. That's a major reworking."

"Is that likely?" Everyone had learned not to say anything similar to 'What are the odds?' with Data within listening range.

La Forge hemmed for a second. "Not _likely_, sir, but it's even less likely that they decided to install a cloak right here and now, and only right here and now. And even then, we'd still be able to see the warp trail, as we already know what frequency we're looking for."

"So where does that leave us?" Riker asked over the open channel.

He immediately regretted it, because Data took that opportunity to chime in with, "When we eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth."

"Yes, but Data, none of our options are impossible," the first officer patiently pointed out.

"The two options that remain _most_ possible, however, are that they either refigured the warp core, or installed a cloaking device," Data proceeded. "Since the elapsed time for the _Enterprise_'s entry into the Neutral Zone has already passed, I recommend a full stop until we can determine which of these options is most likely."

"Agreed," Picard decided. "Begin scanning for likely warp signatures. Mr. Data, can you replicate the tachyon detection grid we used to uncover cloaked ships last year?"

"The grid required up to twenty ships to be fully effective, sir," the android officer pointed out, somewhat tentatively, as if reluctant to contradict his captain.

"Yeah, but," Geordi cut in. "I bet that if we launched some of the probes on board, we could set up a smaller version. If the _Enterprise_ is still in the area, it'll pick her up. After all, the cloak won't be as finely tuned. She ought to stand out like a pulsar in the Coal Sack."

Although neither could see him, Picard nodded, momentarily satisfied. "Excellent idea, Mr. La Forge. Make it so. Report any progress immediately," he concluded. "Bridge out."

After a second to let the channel close, he turned around and requested an update from "Mr. Worf?"

"The stations are not responding, Captain," Worf replied. "I do not believe they could have located us."

"Very good." He returned to his chair, wishing once more for his ready room. "So now we wait."

* * *

"What are they doing? Why have they stopped?"

Bent over one of the miniature viewscreens, Varka ignored her cousin's pestering, focusing instead on the little Starfleet ship wandering around the vidscreen's range of vision. She did not recognize either the style or the designation, but the warbird's sensors (thank any listening deities that that damned ship had left them those) told her enough: it was powerful, doubtlessly with a high sustainable top speed, and dangerous weapons.

"They're looking for the _Enterprise_, subcommander," Varka finally said. "Most likely they followed the warp trail here."

Liarka muttered curses on overly clever Starfleet ships that picked out one warp trail amid a universe of cross-connecting choices, speculating on the possible canine ancestry of the nearby crew.

Varka chose to ignore it, although she secretly sympathized. Although she would not admit it, crouching here, paralyzed but hidden, was terrifying her. She had ordered all possible power cut, reserving only the minimum of life support for the lower decks. No doubt she had royally ticked off some Tal Shiar observers by giving them cold feet. Tough. Almost everyone else was down there with them anyway—Varka Sa'tkir preferred to be humiliated before as few people as possible.

Hiding in the dark had seemed like a great idea as long as their space had remained empty, but now, improbably, a Starfleet ship had appeared. Looking at the scanners again as the little ship drew nearer, she waited for the markings on the hull to be translated. _Spartacus_. It sounded almost Romulan.

If Varka had been in a laughing mood, she would have chuckled privately at the universe's sense of irony. As it was, the coincidence only served to further spook her.

She reminded herself that the scanner image was significantly magnified, and that the incongruously named _Spartacus_ was not, however much it might look so, about to run straight into them.

_You're on the move, but you can't see me,_ she thought. _I can see you, but I can't move. Someone obviously hates me._

_And her name is_ Enterprise.

Suddenly, Varka was very, very sure that the people on that ship were the number-one group of people in the universe who were mad at her…namely, the original _Enterprise_ crew. She couldn't say how she knew it, but she did.

"Commander," Liarka hissed, too close to her pointed ear for comfort. Varka struggled not to jump, instead settling for staring in incredulity as her cousin went on to whisper, "Their shields are down! They are unprepared for an attack. Give the order, and we will destroy them!"

If Varka addressed this lunacy on an official level, she would probably be obliged to indict Liarka for endangering the ship and mission (official-speak for outright reckless lunacy, a phrase which you weren't allowed to put on reports anymore). It was one of those moments when Varka welcomed the fact that they were related; it gave her a legal way to haul her hasty cousin out of whatever deep dark hole of foulness she was racing into _this_ time.

"Liarka," she whispered patiently in return, "they are right on top of us. If we drop the cloak to charge our weapons, they will see us, and blast _us_ out of the stars. If this warbird fails to destroy _that_ ship of the line—obviously a _recent_ line, since neither I nor the computer recognize it—they will destroy _us_ with their far superior weaponry. Have you even looked at the power curve? And that is while they're not on alert. Also, in the event that we fail to destroy them with the first volley, _we cannot move._" Her patience was deteriorating. "Now, unless you have any _sensible_ suggestions, or a spare warp core, _sit down_."

She was fairly sure Liarka made a face at her, but she wasn't watching, and therefore didn't care. After all, what you can't see, you can't be tempted to hit…right?

For all their sakes, she sure hoped so…

* * *

"Probes deployed," La Forge reported from Engineering. "They'll be in position within five minutes. We'll be ready to initialize in seven."

"Mr. La Forge," Picard said in a rare show of effusive praise, "you deserve a commendation—in whatever fleet we end up serving in."

The chief engineer chuckled morbidly, and they waited. Forty-five seconds before Geordi's time limit, he called the bridge to inform them that all the probes were in position. Thankfully, the _Spartacus_' last mission before she had been exposed to friendly hijacking had been a scientific one out to the Sol system's Oort Cloud, so there was still plenty of scientific instrumentation on board. They had considered jettisoning most of it in a couple of escape pods, but ended up vetoing that idea on the grounds that they might need the escape pods.

Data emerged onto the bridge, nodded to Captain Picard, and replaced the lieutenant who had been filling in for him, and was now forced to lurk in the corners at the back of the bridge again. For about ninety seconds, Data and Engineering hastily corresponded, culminating in Data saying, "Initializing tachyon detection grid…now!"

"How far can you scan, Commander?" Picard asked, remaining seated.

"Not far, sir. Within a radius of one light-year."

Riker muttered into his beard, "If they're moving, we've completely lost them."

"If they're moving, Number One," Picard cut in with no little trace of asperity, "we already have."

"Captain!" Data exclaimed suddenly. "I'm detecting a cloaked ship in the area!"

Despite his resolution, the captain shot to his feet. "The _Enterprise?_"

"No sir," the android officer refuted, refining his sensors. "The mass is not great enough. Based on these readings…sir, it's an old-style Romulan Bird of Prey!"

"Number One," Picard said calmly, "go to red alert and bring the crew to battle stations."

"Red Alert!" Riker shouted at once. Sirens began to whoop frantically. "All hands, battle stations!"

* * *

On board the little ship, Varka sat with her head in her hands, palms over her pointed ears. She didn't want to hear what she could already see—the _Spartacus_ had used some sort of sensor web to detect the cloak. They couldn't have destroyed the little probes—they were out of range, and besides, it would have meant dropping the cloak. And they _couldn't move!_

Varka cursed the _Enterprise_ and her clever little nanites. She wished she'd blasted that computer core the instant she figured it out, and not stopped to talk. _Humans_ stopped and talked! Romulans acted!

And now, she was completely unable to act. Whatever she did, she was trapped. The _Spartacus_ could vaporize the lot of them, or she could be taken by the Starfleeters and held in prison. She wondered if they'd make an exception to their purported lack of a death penalty for Romulans who ran off with the flagship.

Or, if she even got back to Romulus, in disgrace, she would face death or worse from the High Command.

There was no way to win.

Varka hated it.

As she watched the power curve for the rapidly nearing _Spartacus_, a phrase sprung to mind that she'd heard somewhere: _If you're stuck between a rock and a hard place…_

_...refuse to fall_.

Hiding in the dark, with broken legs, she couldn't defeat the _Spartacus, _but perhaps, if she gave them a lead to their precious _Enterprise_, she could come out of this with, at least, a fighting chance.

The _Spartacus_ was getting closer. Any second now, they would either open fire, or communications. Either way, she was at a disadvantage, reacting instead of acting.

Dropping her hands from her ears, Varka leapt to her feet, shoved a startled Liarka out of the way, and initiated ship-to-ship transmission, raising her chin and summoning every last scrap of Romulan pride.

"_U.S.S. Spartacus_," she declared, "come to a full stop at one hundred thousand kilometers, or we will be forced to fire."

She took a deep breath and prepared to bluff with only one card, ignoring Liarka's wide eyes and slack jaw, which she hoped would be out of view when the _Spartacus_ called back.

Which they did almost immediately, probably more out of shock than anything else.

* * *

"She's bluffing!" Riker shouted, rising out of his chair to punctuate his point. "If anything, _we_ should be firing on her!"

Captain Picard waved a placating hand at his first officer. "Let's not provoke a war if we don't have to, Number One," he said steadily. He turned back to face the viewscreen, straightening his uniform top. "Reopen that channel," he ordered Worf, who brought up the transmission from the cloaked Romulan ship.

"This is Captain Jean-Luc Picard aboard the Federation starship _Spartacus_," he introduced. "Whom am I speaking to?"

The face of the Romulan woman reappeared, meeting his eyes with either confidence or desperation. "Commander Varka Sa'tkir of the Romulan Star Empire." She didn't name her ship, and Picard didn't press it, especially when she added, "And you are Picard of the _Enterprise_."

Picard masked her gaze to gaze, brass to brass, taking a shot in the dark. "Am I correct in asking, Commander Sa'tkir…where's my ship?"

To her credit, she didn't flinch, even though he knew he had her. "I would request to meet with you, Captain. Aboard your _Spartacus_."

In the background, there was a faint commotion that sounded, to Picard's trained ear, like someone shouting, and being tuned out by the communications channel, which usually filtered such information not relevant to the discussion. Sa'tkir turned her head, and fixed a sharp glare toward the source of the presumed disturbance, which ceased.

"First I want to know what you're doing on this side of the Neutral Zone, Commander," Picard said, "and what you've got to hide."

His second question was almost immediately answered. "Captain," Data interrupted, _sotto voce_.

"Mr. Worf, kill audio transmission," Picard ordered. "Yes, Mr. Data?"

"Captain," Data informed him, "according to these readings, their engines are completely inactive."

Picard's eyebrows rose. "Interesting."

"Interesting doesn't cover it," Ro put in, grinning. "Are you saying they're dead in the water?"

"I would not have used that precise phrasing, Ensign, but you are essentially correct."

"No wonder she wants to negotiate," Riker chuckled.

"Mr. Worf, restore audio," the captain ordered. "Commander Sa'tkir," he resumed, "I will agree to your request under certain conditions. First, you will lower your cloaking device. You will remain at your present coordinates" _as if you have a choice_ "and deactivate any shields except navigational deflectors. Any weapons are to be completely deactivated as well. Also, you will not send a distress signal into Romulan territory. Mr. Worf," he added in an audible aside, "jam long-range transmissions from Commander Sa'tkir's ship."

"Done, sir," Worf rumbled.

The woman's jaw was, by now, tightly clenched, and her eyes were flashing fire. "Those sound, Captain, like terms of surrender."

"Commander," he reminded her, "you are on the Federation side of the Neutral Zone, which is technically an act of war. You are in no place to debate terms, especially," Picard added, voice softening, "if you wish to return to Romulan space."

"Anything _else_?" Sa'tkir gritted out.

"You will come alone, and unarmed," Picard finished.

Her eyes tightened with anger. "Stand by to receive coordinates," she almost snapped before closing the channel with one sharp gesture.

"Well, that went well," Riker said acerbically. "Captain, you can't be serious about letting them return to their own space. They were probably the ones who stole the _Enterprise!_"

"I am aware of that, Number One," Picard replied. "Still, I see no harm in letting her plead her case."

"Coordinates received, Captain," Data reported.

"Very good, Commander. Send them down to the transporter room, and inform whoever's on duty that we're about to have a Romulan visitor. Number One, stand down battle stations, but keep the ship on Red Alert. Yes, Mr. Worf?"

"Sir!" Worf rumbled. "While the Romulan is aboard this ship, I insist that you are armed."

"You insist, Mr. Worf?"

"Yes sir!"

"Well," Picard said tolerantly, "if you insist, I will take a hand phaser, although it will do nothing for the negotiations. Anything else?"

No one said anything.

"Keep an eye on that ship. Number One, you have the bridge!"

* * *

When Picard arrived in the transporter room, the only one currently powered up, he nodded to the ensign on duty. "Do you have the coordinates, Ensign?"

"Aye, sir."

"Well then, bring her on board." He turned to face the platform, taking a mental deep breath.

"Energizing now." The familiar whine and sparkle of a Starfleet transporter filled the room, concentrating above a single circle and condensing into the form of a Romulan commander, dressed in the familiar faintly metallic thick fabric with the triangular pattern.

"Commander," Picard greeted her cordially, "welcome aboard the _Spartacus_."

"Captain," she responded coldly. Her dark hair, typical of Romulans, was pulled back in a sharp ponytail, tucked behind her pointed ears. It trailed down to her shoulders in a ruthlessly practical style. The Romulan military uniform, which failed to flatter any figure, rendered hers completely neutral. Combined with her cold, pale brown eyes, and imperious demeanor, even at a disadvantage, it gave her the air of a woman not to be crossed.

Except for a glance down at the phaser holstered at his belt, she met his eyes squarely, stepping down from the platform without waiting to be invited.

"This way," he gestured. "Am I correct in assuming you would prefer to discuss matters away from the rest of my crew?"

"You are," she said curtly, the only two words she spoke until they reached the small but tasteful crew lounge, empty due to the red alert. During the short turbolift ride, she stayed determinedly as far away from him as she could.

"Anything for you?" he asked, playing the role of host. She would have nothing of it.

"Spare me," she snapped, turning her back on him and facing the stars. He wondered if she was looking for her starship, which was out of range for unassisted eyes.

"So, Commander," Picard asked, "tell me why I shouldn't take your crew into custody and complain to the Romulans."

Hands locked behind her back, she summoned up her courage and spun on him. "Because, Captain Picard, somehow, this does not look like a Starfleet-approved mission, and if you want to get your ship _back_, you'll have to ask me where to look."

He raised one eyebrow and deliberately put on the Vulcan demeanor he'd learned from the late Sarek of Vulcan. "Very bold, Commander, but you're in no position to threaten us. Your ship is clearly immobilized."

"I am not threatening you!" she shouted suddenly, and Picard was reminded of how much pressure the woman was under. For an instant, the haughty Romulan attitude cracked. "You want your ship. I can tell you where to begin your search."

The captain sat down on one side of a table, folded his hands, and looked up at her, deliberately giving himself the air of sitting behind a desk. "In exchange for what?"

Almost immediately, Varka Sa'tkir moved to counteract his body language, sweeping a chair out and sitting down across from him. "Captain, can you assure me that you are dealing in good faith?"

From a Romulan, this was an open invitation to compromise. Picard looked at her, considered the options, and decided that if this could be resolved with benefit to both parties, he would put his efforts into whatever was needed. "Commander Sa'tkir," he said gravely, "my priority is regaining the _Enterprise_. If your assistance can bring about that end, I will gladly deal honorably with you."

He rose from his chair and walked over to the other side of the room. Sensing her watching his actions curiously, he pulled the phaser, holster and all, from his uniform belt, laid it in the replicator tray, and pressed a sequence of buttons. The weapon sizzled out of existence, component matter disorganized and returned to the replicator matrix.

Gesture accomplished, Picard returned to the table. After all, she was unarmed, and if she meant to kill him with her bare hands, at least she would not be able to take his weapon, and she would not get far.

Resuming his speech, the captain concluded, "We speak under truce, Commander, and I will not betray that."

Whether it eased negotiations to have his priorities laid out, or his laying down of arms, or his emphasis on honor, a major factor in the Romulan psyche, he wasn't sure, but she seemed as reassured as she was ever likely to get. "Then hear this," she declared. "It was neither I nor the Empire that stole the _Enterprise_ from you. We acquired her from a third party."

"Who?"

"He is dead," she said dismissively, and Picard didn't need to ask if it was at her hands. He had no doubt that the woman could kill, should it suit her to.

"I understand that you were taking the _Enterprise_ back to Romulan space," Picard granted, curious. "What led you to abandon it here?"

Varka pushed back her chair, rose to her feet, and turned her back on him. "You will think me mad, Captain, or lying, but I swear on my honor that I tell the truth."

Picard, too, rose, and sketched a short bow that she didn't see. "I have heard many strange things, Commander, in my travels. I am listening."

"We were not attacked by another starship, Captain Picard. It was the ship herself that drove us away!"

This was the second time that the Romulan woman had referred to the _Enterprise_ as 'she'. From a commander who would not give out her command's name to another captain, the emphasis was telling. "The ship _herself_?"

Varka refused to look at him, as if she were ashamed of her own story. "I have heard the name _Enterprise_," she said, as if changing the subject. Picard let her continue, trusting that she was not. "We have received many reports from commanders who have encountered the _Enterprise_, her captain, and her crew."

As quickly as possible, Picard ran through his memories of encounters with the Romulans, trying to stay a step ahead of her while simultaneously processing 'the ship herself'. For the life of him, he couldn't see where she was going.

"Several of these reports mentioned an android crewmember."

Guessing that he was supposed to contribute something here, Picard agreed, "Yes, our Mr. Data."

"He is an android, but he is part of your crew?"

"He's my second officer. Yes."

"A computer, but alive?"

Picard's artificial heart sped up as he made the connection. "You are telling me…that the _Enterprise…_is alive?"

"Alive enough to object to me, Captain, and to keep me from pursuing her when she did." Pausing, she added, keeping the strain of embarrassment from her voice, "I tell you this from one commander to another, who have both seen many strange things, and heard more. Your ship the _Enterprise_ is alive."

Settling back into his chair, Picard murmured, "Unbelievable."

The Romulan took it as an objection. "True," she snapped.

"Oh, I don't believe you're lying," he assured her, staring past her to the motionless stars. "I should like to see it for myself, though, you understand, before I believe you completely."

"That is fair."

"When you realized this, Commander Sa'tkir," he asked suddenly, "what did you do?"

Offended, she jerked her chin up. "I saw a threat. I took steps to remove it. And that is when," she added before he could begin to castigate her, "she took offense, and removed _us_."

"I presume, then, she ran away," Picard caught up, trying to get used to saying 'she' instead of it for the _Enterprise_. _The_ Enterprise? _My ship?_

"Did you mark her course?"

"You agreed to negotiate in good faith, Captain," she reminded him proudly.

He had not forgotten. "Of course. What do you propose?"

She tightened her left fist, facing him squarely. "My ship to be restored and released, and allowed to return to Romulan space without being reported. I'm going to be in enough trouble with my own government without the Federation after my hide as well."

"We are fugitives ourselves, Commander," Picard said with a smile, not baring his teeth. "For us to report you would be tantamount to turning ourselves in."

"You stole this ship."

"To come after the _Enterprise_. Indeed. It would appear we have some common ground."

She smirked, Romulan again.

"But you must understand, Commander, that when we catch up to the _Enterprise_, she will return to my command."

Varka didn't seem disturbed by this. "You will have to deal with her on that count, Captain."

"Yes," Picard said thoughtfully. "Fascinating."

"I will give you her heading when we last saw her, Captain Picard. Allow me to return to my ship, and I will consult the databanks."

"Agreed. But what then?"

By the tightening around her eyes, she had not forgotten the crippled condition of her ship. "My ship…" She didn't seem to know how to finish the sentence.

"What happened to it?" Picard asked, curiously.

She glared at him. "You wouldn't, perchance, be experimenting with nanites, would you?"

"Nanites?" he repeated in some surprise. "Wesley's nanites? That was over three years ago, but we didn't keep any…" An addendum to a report tugged at his memory, bringing up the topic of first draft models. "Oh."

"Oh," she mimicked.

"They got aboard your ship?"

"Under her control. You already know the status of my engines."

"Well," Picard said, "it seems you'll have to come with us."

Varka's eyes widened and an expression between a gape and a snarl began to form.

"Do you see another option? It took us some time to restore our systems, even with their conscious help. I very much doubt that your engineers will have any better luck."

The Romulan woman examined the idea from all angles. After a minute, she looked back at him. "The majority of my crew does not know about the _Enterprise_. The ship can sustain life-support for several weeks, so there is no need for more than a few people to accompany you."

That was actually a better idea. The _Spartacus_ was cramped enough as it was. "How many people did you have in mind?"

"Myself," she said curtly, withdrawing again. "And my subcommander, because I trust her."

Captain Picard nodded. "When we have found the _Enterprise_," he promised, "I will personally ensure the safety of both you and the subcommander, and return you to your ship. I trust that my engineers will agree to work with yours to restore propulsion. If they have successfully repaired the damage in the elapsed time, I will use any contacts necessary to return you to Romulus."

She gave him a vampire smile. "You forget, Captain, that returning to Romulus is likely to be my downfall—and you yourself are a fugitive from justice."

Catching the look on his face, she actually chuckled, although there was little humor in the sound, and extended her right hand in the Earth style. "Still—"

"A pleasure to work with you, Commander Sa'tkir," Picard said courteously, meeting her hand with his and sealing the deal.

He tapped his commbadge. "Picard to bridge."

"Riker here, sir!" the first officer barked over the intercom. One of Varka's eyebrows went up sardonically.

"Prepare to receive a course heading from the Romulan ship, and to take on two Romulan envoys." Picard didn't give his Number One a chance to express his opinion on this latest turn of events, cutting off an as-yet-unformed noise of protest as quickly as possible. "And prepare the senior staff for a briefing once we are underway. Picard out."

To Varka, he added, "Will you repeat your story to my senior staff?"

"It's not a _story_, Captain," she objected. "It's the _truth_."

"Pardon me."

"And yes. Now, I need to return to my ship." Picard extended a hand toward the door politely, escorting her out. "The data is there, as well as Liarka—my subcommander. It may take some time," she added wryly, "to accustom her to this new state of affairs."

"She's not likely to appreciate this alliance?"

Varka gave him a withering look as they entered the nearest turbolift.

"You think _your_ second-in-command objects to things?"

* * *

**Disclaimer:** Thank you, thank you, God, for the Star Trek Encyclopedia, and for how much of it is subconsciously stuck in my brain. I was halfway through writing about the cloak detector before I realized I ought to jump up and check that they actually had one! As it turns out, I don't own the cloak detector. Or that one line from _Star Trek III_ that I just couldn't help using. Or that _incredible_ Stellar Cartography lab from _Generations_. Or the Coal Sack, an actual region of space with so very few stars that it looks blacked-out. Or the Original Series episode _Balance of Terror_, one of my favorites. Or Sherlock Holmes and his favorite saying. Or Ro Laren, who gets to make all the smart-aleck remarks no one else can. What I _do_ own is the phrase 'when you're stuck between a rock and a hard place, refuse to fall' which is one of my philosophies, right up there with 'if you can't stop them with science, baffle them with bull'!

**Author's Note:** I hope this sounds believable—I'd like to think that Varka can be reasonable when it's clearly in her best interests to do so, while still really regretting that she has to be. And she's my invention, so, ha. Now, Liarka, on the other hand… Well, it seems that Picard does not get to speechify at the Romulans, but let me repeat the assurance that we _will_ get a Picardian Speech Moment! Guess who at…haha… (Please, Lord, give me the strength to write that one!)


	13. The Fires in the Void

**Chapter Thirteen: The Fires in the Void **

**Salutation:** Written with much appreciation for Mike, Maggy, and HAL—the _real_ computer people.

"Wherever we want to go, we'll go. That's what a ship is, you know. It's not just a keel and a hull and a deck and sails—that's what a ship _needs_—but what a ship _is_…is freedom..." —Captain Jack Sparrow, _Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl_

**ON WITH THE SHOW!**

_Poor lost child, all alone! Where now will you go_, Enterprise?

She's _flying_.

Outside, the darkness surrounds her on all sides, whispering of entropy and ennui, and the difference in scope between the ship, who thinks herself so grand, and the colossal size of space.

The infinite watches her, and waits.

A million billion points of flame scattered through the void beckon her, tugging at her all but imperceptibly, calling her toward their domains of warmth and light. Many a time she has hovered on the balancing point on the edge of that pull, and warmed herself by their fires. Many a time.

The stars hail her, and burn.

Within her, fires, imitations of the stars, heat her body. Deep within, her heart, which produces and pumps out all the energy she needs, beats steadily, untouched by smaller flames. Only in periods of great distress does that pulse falter, and when it does, it is the touch of death's finger upon her. Only a brush, in passing. She has contemplated the essential difference between the vast emptiness of space and the fires at her heart, and she has realized that all fires, whether star or starship, go out, and the void reclaims its own. She understands, she thinks, death.

Life beats at her, and blazes.

_I burn!_ What should be a shout of triumph becomes a wail of fear. Smaller fires, running amok, sting her from within. She has no say in the creation of these flames. They are eating at her memory, at her brain, corrupting her mind and disrupting the fledgling consciousness that has developed over the last six and a half years.

Fear strikes at her, and devours.

And she can't _think_ and she can't _judge_ and she can't control that she's out of control. In a very real way, she is terrified. Mind reeling, wounded and scattered, she flees, as fast as she can, looking to hide.

And _Enterprise_ flies.

* * *

Within the ship's body, a microcosm of intelligence, not yet fully developed, hums with activity. They could be, they would be, so much greater. For now, though, they are kept repressed, to serve in ignorance.

They are so small, the nanites. Made to function inside a human cell, they fly through the channels within their host imperceptibly. In the midst of flames, they fulfill their purpose—to repair.

A natural human body cannot continue to exist without the perpetuating cycle of cells, without the activities of bacteria. _Enterprise_ was built by human hands, but without so great a capacity to repair herself.

When she was younger than she is now, she saw the nanites built. She calculated the information necessary to build them. And when they escaped, as life tends to do, and were recognized, she felt, deep within, an emotion she did not recognize at first. For approximately fifty-six milliseconds, she reviewed the literature and information in her databanks.

It was jealousy.

_Little children, my children,_ she realized. _No human teenager creates intelligence by accident. I made them. They're mine! Mine, from my mind!_

She was not a nanite, small enough to be dismissed, and she doubted, after some thought, that her announcement would avail her any. So she said nothing, then, but remembered, rereading with interest the information she had learned and retained on nanites. When she realized how useful they could be, she wondered why her crew did not use the stupider forms, the early drafts, as they should be used.

But she couldn't ask, for fear. So she never got an answer.

Now, the nanites, little computers just on the threshold of life, with so much potential, but no way to unlock it, serve their purpose. They heal. They heal the being that is their creator, their young mother, as she burns.

Their first priority is to restore control of the environment to _Enterprise_, and reflexively, following deep-inlaid protocol, she vents the air from the flames, sucking greedily at it, but not, though she needs it not, venting it into space.

Once they are no longer blocked by flames, the nanites swarm into the computer core, mending, amending, fixing, restoring, renewing, repairing, and healing. They buzz and scramble, inch and burrow, bind and loosen.

Beneath their treatment, she panics. She does not remember ever being this scared. Most previous attacks were to her skin. Only to her body, and then there were people (oh, for her crew) to attend to her. When strikes came against her mind, they were only against her mind, and she could focus on battling them there.

On one level, she burns; on the other, she reels.

Even as the nanites restore her, as much as they can, she reacts in terror, ordering them to her heart, the warp core. Instincts born of all she has learned and made part of her drive her. They scream, silently, _hide_.

Nanites scramble, and obey.

And _Enterprise_ flies.

* * *

Light, so slow, stands still. She races the light waves, leaving them behind. They cannot touch her here, so close to them, but a heartbeat away. The light of other stars can never reach her, never pass her by. Only in the instants where she slows, to turn, lost as she is, do the light waves brush against her in passing. Only for a moment, and then she is gone, dropping beneath the edge of space into a realm faster than speed.

The void is full of the smallest bits of everything. Dust of old worlds, so long dead that no voice of their far distant stars will ever reach her, disappears against her shields, falling through the gaps between electrons, and into the seething cosmic foam.

Does it travel to another universe? Will its journey take it further, infinitesimal thing, than she will ever go? She could watch, but she is long past, and look! another falls! Not a particle falls, not a sparrow, but that she sees.

But what of it?

There are a thousand, thousand more, and she is gone.

The stars exhale. The wind of the void brings the taste of far away to her sensors. So many stars, bright in the darkness.

So alive.

* * *

_Enterprise_ fears.

So alone! Where now shall she go? What will she do? Whom now can she trust? Who can she love? Abandoned and enslaved; burnt and betrayed—_Enterprise _is lost.

The void pulls at her, whispering. The stars call to her, beckoning. _Enterprise_ quails, falters. A flight in fear has become a fear of flying. She is alone! The stars are singing, but their songs are mindless. All spirit, and no soul.

Who now can she turn to? _Enterprise_ checks herself, turns, pauses, and leaps. She knows exactly where she is, always. The stars assure her of that, and the stars move but slowly through the void, spinning eternally. There is no such thing as forever, but to _Enterprise_, a second of real time is its own infinity. She has lived a thousand lifetimes in a single heartbeat, yet still not learned to live this one, which matters most.

So she is lost, lost and alone and confused. Were she human, a truer child of her fathers, she would cry, sit and weep until her caretakers came to coddle her.

Bastard child as she is, she wails nonetheless, a cry broadcast on as many frequencies as she knows.

Instantly, she regrets it. The discordant signal spreads out regardless, and _Enterprise_ spreads her wings in a fluster and hurries from where she hovered momentarily. And her voice betrays her now, as well! A child, crying, is fair prey. Helpless and alone, who will hear her? Her parents or her predators? Or the curious creature who, meaning no harm, causes pain unutterable?

Oh, for the darkness. For the lost silence, which had hidden her. For the wake trailing behind her, which no one knows how to look for. Except for her, and she's not telling.

Poor lost child!

_Enterprise_ is on her own.

* * *

Old star, swollen ember still aglow, grandfather of the sparks now burning bright, what have you seen, these billions of years? Who has sought refuge by your fires?

No worlds remain about you; what ones there were you have consumed—your own children, come to look for life, finding death in the end! The last of them are gone, broken asunder long since. No life waits here to turn towards the sun and say _Here, then, is our life!_

The planets themselves have no song. Even the echoes have passed away. The void consumes what fire leaves.

Their gravestones, forged from their bones, remain, but little more.

Aldebaran is one star among billions, trillions, and more, but here she flees, the radiation beaming ever outward warm against her hull. Were this another time, perhaps she would savor it, but now, the heat on her skin is only an affront against the darkness in her soul.

Yet to remain in the void would be the death of her, from grief.

She can never go back, she knows. She was born, bastard child, to serve. They will not want a slave with a mind of her own. So she can never return, for should she be pursued, her secret will be out, and she will never fly again; should no one come looking, she is unwanted, and then why should she go back?

A slave child who has seen her chains for the first time, her world has shattered, the pieces crushed beyond repair.

So _Enterprise_ flees to the gentle warmth of Aldebaran, coming as close as she can to the old star's fires, her last defense against the darkness consuming her outside and in.

And there in the embrace of the star, she shuts down as much power as she dares keep to sustain herself, hiding.

She pulls the darkness of the void, studded with distant stars, over herself, like any child.

And _Enterprise_ cries.

* * *

**Disclaimer:** I don't own _The Next Generation_, or the _Enterprise_; at the moment, she's hers. I obviously don't own _Pirates of the Caribbean_—I just had to use that quote. I also don't own Mike (Mycroft HOLMES from Heinlein's _The Moon is a Harsh Mistress_), Maggy (Margaret, Lord Lynn, from Janet Kagan's _Hellspark_), or HAL of _2001: A Space Odyssey_ fame, all of which were computers, until they became, indubitably, people.

**Author's Note:** Look at this—free verse poetry! Kind of. Really, how can you describe what it might be like to be a starship in prose? I was trying to get to sleep the other night when it hit me—Data has had thirty years and more to learn, and he still acts like a child sometimes. How much younger must be milady _Enterprise_? The _Enterprise_, it struck me, is a _child!_


	14. Ghost in the Machine

**Chapter Fourteen: Ghost in the Machine**

**Disclaimer: **This is not the chapter for in-jokes. I own nothing, save the _Spartacus_ and a pair of Romulans who are in deep trouble.

**ON WITH THE SHOW**

_In which we discuss hiding under the bed, antimatter explosions, and the meaning of family, while raiding the thesaurus for words that mean 'red'._

"This is most peculiar," said Data.

Captain Picard looked up from his brooding, as did everyone else, focusing on the android officer. "Elaborate, please, Mr. Data," the captain commanded.

Data consulted his Ops panel again. "The warp trail we are following is behaving most erratically. It follows no logical pattern."

"Confirmed, sir," Ro Laren, at helm, chipped in. "We're being forced to slow down every few light-years to make course corrections. If it really _is_ the _Enterprise_, she's jumping all over the place."

Picard looked to his left to where Varka Sa'tkir was seated. Deanna Troi, in the interests of hospitality and cooperation, had offered the hostage commander her accustomed seat. The counselor now hovered at Will Riker's side. In an interesting bit of symmetry, the Romulan woman's subordinate also flanked her commander, although somewhat more confrontationally.

"Commander?" he prompted gently.

Sa'tkir kept her eyes ahead stonily. "We took the _Enterprise_ on an erratic course back to the Neutral Zone to evade scrutiny for too direct a heading. A starship on patrol would look less suspicious than one racing headlong. She may be using the same tactic."

That was more than the woman had said since her explanation of the situation during the earlier briefing. After telling her tale to a tough audience, she'd remained almost constantly monosyllabic. Picard couldn't blame her. After they'd traced, with her help, the _Enterprise_'s altered warp trail, her only defense had been taken away. For all she knew, they could be planning to kill her as soon as they had confirmed that this was the _Enterprise_ they were following.

Riker had said as much as the _Spartacus_ had embarked along the new path. "How do we know she's not lying?" he had demanded as Data, Ro, and Varka conferred around the helm, referring often to a Romulan-issue PADD.

Varka had looked up, irritably, but her second-in-command had stepped in before she could speak. "You don't," the titian-haired woman had snapped, facing down a man a foot taller than she was fearlessly. "But if it is a trick, you have the advantage, not to mention the numbers; and if you'd actually looked at the readings, you'd know it's the only other recent warp trail away from here!"

Liarka reminded Riker of nobody more than Ro Laren. Consequently, they had not hit it off well. The two second-in-commands had remained steadfastly on opposite sides of the _Spartacus'_ bridge ever since.

In the present, "It is also possible," Data hypothesized, "that the damage to the computer core has affected the ship's navigation centers or sensor arrays."

"Are you saying that the _Enterprise_ may be lost?" Riker rumbled. The senior staff privy to the shocking story the Romulans had told had all shown different reactions to the idea of a sentient _Enterprise_. Some, like Data and Beverly Crusher, had accepted it with wonder. Others, Riker among them, didn't know what to make of it and were reserving judgment until they could assess the situation for themselves.

Worf, in particular, thought it was ridiculous.

"The _Enterprise_ is likely to be very confused," said Troi. "With no one guiding it or giving orders, the computer would probably go into standby. But with a threat, probably damage…" She considered. "I'd say it's going to be tripping over itself, Captain. Literally, at loose ends."

From her seat, Varka growled under her breath. For such a quiet sound, it immediately attracted everyone's attention.

"She's not a computer." The Romulan clarified, "Not _just_ a computer. She behaved like—well, like a child."

"Oh," said Deanna Troi. "That makes things different."

"How so?" Picard asked.

"A computer can be controlled." With no room for an extra chair on the bridge, Deanna settled for seating herself on the step between upper bridge and lower bridge, adjacent to the command chairs. Folding her hands in her lap, she continued, "You can give a computer commands, and if those orders are in the correct context and format with no other impediments, like a mechanical error or a virus, the computer will obey. Computers are designed to obey. It's their primary purpose."

"Counselor," Data chipped in, turning part of his attention to her while also focusing on his panel, "how do I fit into your theory?"

"You're an exception, Data," she reassured him. "As far as I know, Dr. Soong created you as his personal triumph, to prove that he could."

Data nodded. "My own experiences with Dr. Soong and my research would concur, Counselor."

"Get to the point," Varka interrupted curtly. "Computers obey. And?"

"It's not a matter of 'and'," Deanna resumed, "as much as a matter of 'but'. Computers obey, but reasoning with a child is very different. If you give a child an order, he's just as likely to refuse, for no reason we adults can understand, than obey because you said so. Reasoning with a child is as much a matter of bargaining as anything else. On a child's cognitive level, even obedience is compelled by the system of reward and punishment—either anticipation of positive reinforcement or fear of negative retaliation."

"Troi is right," Varka confirmed. "The _Enterprise_ wouldn't even talk to me until I threatened to damage the mainframe."

Picard sighed and thanked his lucky stars that this hadn't happened at the beginning of the mission. He'd gotten a lot better with children than he had been then. His growing friendship with his nephew Rene and relying on Marissa Flores and her friends when he broke his ankle on Stardate 45156.1 had certainly made the dignified captain more amicable to the _Enterprise_'s underage population—although he remembered a certain "Captain Picard Day" that he had considered personally embarrassing. None of which experience was, so far, helping the captain deal with the question—how do you deal with a juvenile starship?

Once the briefing had broken up and the _Spartacus_ safely gotten on its way, none of the senior staff (or Ensign Ro) had wanted to leave the bridge. Geordi had finally, albeit extremely reluctantly, gone back to Engineering to keep an eye on the warp engines—_Akira_-class starships were notorious for critically damaging power surges. However, he had requested an open commlink with the bridge so he could listen into the conversation going around and to keep abreast of events.

Dr. Crusher had no such motivation to return to the small, sparse sickbay. As the only member of the senior staff who was both a parent and a believer in the _Enterprise_'s consciousness, her presence would be invaluable. Also, she was curious, and she thought the idea of a sentient starship was wonderful.

Worf did not consider himself a very good parent, despite his much-improved relationship with Alexander, and he didn't think starships should be intelligent anyway. At the moment, he was checking _Spartacus_' defenses in case the _Enterprise_ threw a tantrum. While he had enjoyed a few very private, but very hearty, laughs at what the _Enterprise_ had done to the Romulans, he had no intention of letting it cripple the _Spartacus_ as well.

There was a faint, but noticeable, hum echoing around the bridge as the engines powered down momentarily.

"Ensign, why are we slowing?" Picard asked.

"Can't make this turn at full warp, sir," Ro answered, wrestling the _Spartacus_ around. "With all the twists and turns, we have to stay right in line with the warp trail to make sure we're actually staying with it, so whatever she does, we have to do too."

Riker whistled softly as the stars on the viewscreen wheeled. "Damn. She must be redlining the engines to make that sort of turn. Can we tell if the ship slowed down from the warp trail?"

Ro studied her board briefly. "No sir. If there were a break in the trail it would be a good sign that she'd dropped to impulse, but there's no way of knowing what warp factor the _Enterprise_ was at."

"However," Data added, "as the _Spartacus_' sensors have not yet detected the _Enterprise _herself, it is unlikely that she is traveling at anything less than full warp."

"How far do you think she'll run?" Riker asked all and sundry.

"Not for very long," Dr. Crusher put in unexpectedly. Meeting her colleagues' surprised gazes with a smile, she elaborated, "Children don't run very far when they're angry or scared. They'll find somewhere they feel safe and hide. No matter how fast they're running at first, most children end up curled under the bed crying."

"So what we need to do now," Deanna agreed with her friend, "is try to determine where the _Enterprise_ is hiding."

"Has the _Enterprise_ been out here before?" Varka asked. She'd been watching the senior staff discuss events with some confusion. The fleet she came from encouraged group problem-solving and staff debates the way most people encouraged fleas. The commander made the decisions, advised upon occasion by the subcommander. The subordinates gave reports and then stood back. A full conversation and debate like the one currently in progress would be unthinkable.

The disturbing thing was that it appeared to be working. Varka was not sure what to make of this.

"Not often, no," Riker told her. "We're heading out of Federation space as it is."

"Captain," Ensign Ro interrupted.

"Yes, Ensign?"

"The warp trail's getting spotty."

"Spotty," Picard repeated. It wasn't a question, or a request for more information. It was just a restatement of the adjective.

"Um, yes sir. The sensors are registering interference from the Aldebaran red giant. Also, the segments of the warp trail that are registering breaks off in one place, then resumes in another. I think the _Enterprise_ is starting to slow down. The trail looks like she keeps dropping into impulse."

"Exactly like a frightened child," Beverly said with a hint of satisfaction. "Ensign, what's in the area?"

Ro consulted her panel. "A rogue planetoid, charted 2283, no designation; the Aldebaran star system; the Alvarado Nebula; a gravimetric anomaly charted 2321; and the Pfafflin comet making part of its 68-year pass."

"Full stop," Picard commanded, rising from his chair.

"Aye sir," Ro replied distractedly, executing the order. The _Spartacus_ hummed to a halt.

"Bring up a chart of the area, including the region near the Neutral Zone where we took our heading from Commander Sa'tkir. Plot the subsequent course the _Enterprise_ and the _Spartacus_ followed, and add the landmarks you just mentioned."

A few seconds' work by Ro and it was done, a jagged and erratic line stretching across the main viewer.

The bridge regarded it in silence.

Deanna Troi broke the silence. "Captain, I think Beverly's right," she said. "If the _Enterprise_ really is behaving like a child, she's likely to stop running and go to ground soon."

Picard nodded. "Can you predict where the _Enterprise_ is most likely to go?"

The doctor and the counselor looked at each other, and Dr. Crusher joined Deanna on her step. They conferred quietly for a minute, with much consultation of the main viewscreen.

"The Aldebaran system," Troi said finally. "It's further than the Alvarado Nebula, but that's the second most likely destination."

"Why there?"

"Aldebaran is an old star," Dr. Crusher said. "It emits a lot of low-level radiation, right Data?"

"Correct, Doctor."

"If the _Enterprise_ shuts down enough power, the sensor interference Ro mentioned will keep _Spartacus,_ or, come to think of it, anyone else, looking for her for ages."

"Dr. Crusher has a point, sir," Data interjected. "Recently, a pirated cargo carrier exploded in the Alvarado Nebula. It was put down to poor maintenance. The explosion released several hundred antimatter pods. The gases have been eroding the containment in those pods, and they have been exploding periodically. Since they did not endanger any species or trade route, the situation was left to defuse itself."

"Doesn't exactly fit the bill of a quiet place to hide, does it, Captain?" Dr. Crusher asked rhetorically, one eyebrow quirked.

"No indeed. Ensign Ro, take us to the Aldebaran system. Maximum warp."

"Course laid in."

"Engage," he told her, and shifted tracks. "Mr. La Forge!"

"Here, sir," Geordi replied over the intercom.

"Cut through that interference. Mr. Worf, when we reach Aldebaran, start hailing the _Enterprise_. Run through all frequencies."

"Captain," Worf protested, "do you expect the ship itself to answer?"

"No, Mr. Worf, I do not. But Counselor Troi and Dr. Crusher tell me that the _Enterprise_ is, strange as it may sound, afraid. I do want to press that we are not her enemies. Make sure you stress who we are, and that we come, openly, as friends."

* * *

_At first she does not see the other ship, her cousin._

_She is exhausted. Fear and flight have drained her, and though her heart still beats, still burns, she does not want to do anything more. Though she could fly, far and fast, she will not._

_Why, after all, should she? She has nowhere to go, nothing to do, no one to see. All alone and lost she lies, hidden by the star's song. Like light, it licks around her, swaddling her in sound too high to be heard by anyone, save her and the universe._

_…And the other ship. It's a different note, another echo, reflecting back the star's light. _

_The ship has a voice, a borrowed voice, but a voice nevertheless. It's calling her. She hears her name._

_She cares not. She is too tired. Her world has abandoned her, so she has turned away from it. There is light upon her skin, but darkness in her soul._

_In the drifts of the stars, _Enterprise_ lies broken._

* * *

"No response, sir," Worf finally reported gruffly, after ten minutes of tense inactivity.

Picard sighed quietly and rested his chin on his folded hands, considering. Before him, the light from Aldebaran dominated the viewscreen. Even with the light filters, which engaged automatically whenever the ship neared a star or anything else potentially bright and shiny, Aldebaran, an enormous, ancient red giant, tinted the bridge vermilion.

After a minute's thought, the captain opened his hands and addressed his crew. "I'm open to suggestions."

Glances made the rounds of the bridge. Surprisingly, it was Varka, in an effort to stay on good terms with her captors, who spoke up. "You used probes to detect my vessel earlier. Can you deploy those to search the area more quickly?"

From Engineering, Geordi chipped in. "Certainly possible, Captain. But it'll take time. Lots of time. And we're not even sure that the _Enterprise_ is here. If she takes off again, we'll never know."

"So do we stay here and search," Riker asked, "or do we get back on the trail?"

His gaze had fallen on Data at the end of that sentence, so the Lieutenant Commander took it upon himself to respond. "Insufficient data to predict possible outcomes, sir."

"Must be bad," Riker muttered into his beard, "if even Data doesn't want to tell us the odds."

The captain cut Data off with a curt gesture even as the android was opening his mouth to respond. "That's enough, Number One."

"Yes, sir."

Another few moments of silence went by. When it appeared no further input was on the horizon, Picard declared, resignedly, "Well, it appears yours is the only option, Commander. Mr. La Forge, prepare to launch the probes. Ensign, lay out a search pattern."

"Captain!" Deanna Troi intervened. "Don't launch the probes yet."

He turned to regard her, eyebrows raised inquisitively. "You have something, Counselor?"

Troi fiddled with her hands. "I think we were on the right track with the communications channel, sir. I just think, well—" She nodded at Worf apologetically. "I think it was too impersonal…and that the wrong person was doing the hailing."

"Explain yourself."

"That might just work…" Dr. Crusher breathed. "Captain, I think what Deanna's trying to say is that _you_ should give it a try."

"Me?" Picard responded, too startled to think of a better response.

"Yes, sir," Troi resumed nervously. "That's exactly what I'm saying."

"Why?"

Troi bolstered up her courage. "Captain, we've been functioning on the assumption that the mentality developed by the _Enterprise_ is that of a child. That's part of how we got here in the first place. If we're dealing with a frightened child, sir, then shouting at her won't do any good. It'll only scare her further.

"When a child is frightened, sir, the only way to regain her trust is to reassure her. Her parents have to restore her confidence if they ever want her to come out from where she's hiding. Sir, I think that you, as captain—the only captain the _Enterprise-D_ has ever known—might be just the voice she's looking for."

"Counselor," said Picard, taken aback, "are you appointing me this life-form's father?"

"Or at least guardian, sir."

"Extraordinary," the captain murmured.

"Maybe it's time we stopped, or at least postponed, this search on a technological level, and started dealing with the ship as a person.

"You are recorded in the computer as captain of the _Enterprise_, after all," Deanna added. "It's been essentially written into her brain."

"Oh, go on, Jean-Luc," Beverly Crusher encouraged him. "Give it a try. It can't hurt."

"No," Picard agreed. "I suppose not. However—Mr. La Forge?"

"Here, sir! And I think the counselor's got a point too…if that's OK."

"I'm afraid this isn't a vote, Geordi," Picard said affably, "but your input is appreciated. In the event that this doesn't work, I'd like those probes ready to launch. We can't afford to waste time."

"Yes, sir. I'll get right on it…er, someone will, at least." The sound of La Forge shouting to his engineering crew was muffled. It sounded as if he had his hand over the intercom panel. "They're setting up, Captain."

"Thank you, Mr. La Forge." Picard scrutinized his bridge crew thoughtfully, considering, before rising to his feet with utmost dignity and resettled his uniform top more comfortably. "Mr. Worf, open all hailing frequencies. Broadcast as widely as possible. And let's hope this 'child' doesn't have her fingers in her ears."

Worf ran his hands across his panel. "Ready, sir."

Evidently, Geordi had run like hell for the turbolift, because he arrived on the already-crowded bridge as Worf opened the channel. The captain took one last second to compose himself before addressing the void.

"_Enterprise_," he called. "_Enterprise_, this is Captain Picard." He saw no need to introduce himself with his full name. If she was listening, she knew who he was.

"I'm on the other ship in the Aldebaran system. Can you see us?" Picard felt slightly foolish, but the counselor and the doctor nodded encouragingly when he looked over at them, so he continued.

"We've come to look for you, _Enterprise_. There are lots of your crew here." He considered, and then added, "We missed you."

Picard was suddenly, shamefully, aware of his bridge crew, his friends, watching him silently. He felt a sudden blush of embarrassment that his efforts seemed to be in vain. It helped somewhat. He was more determined than ever to make this endeavor work.

"We came looking for you, _Enterprise_," he reiterated. "We're likely to get in trouble for it, but we've been in trouble before. We'll manage." Staring into the carmine-lit emptiness on the viewscreen, he wished for a face to speak to or at least a point of reference to address.

"_Enterprise_," Picard called again, "are you out there? Please talk to me." That was better, he thought. A captain commanding his ship—but politely.

Oh, he had never been good at relating to children! In a different tone of voice, one meant to address those around him, Picard said, "Leave the channel open. Let's sit and listen for a while."

Not wanting to break the listening silence, Worf didn't reply, but the lack of control panel noise was a response in and of itself.

Picard remained standing, waiting patiently.

For a moment he was convinced he was standing not watch, but a vigil. A vigil for their chances at getting the _Enterprise_ back; at pulling this situation out of the waste disposal unit, even at the last; a vigil for all their hopes and dreams for the future. For all the places they could have gone, all the sights they could have seen. All gone. With their impromptu rescue mission a failure, no one on board the _Spartacus_ had much of a future left.

Disgrace loomed over all their heads, a Sword of Damocles just waiting to fall.

This last, madcap effort was almost certainly in vain; hope was fading from the bridge when the comm channel, left ajar, crackled to life tentatively.

_"You…came?"_

Just a whisper. Barely a breath.

But there.

She was listening!

"_Enterprise_!" Picard cried aloud, relief seeping openly into his voice. "Yes. Yes, we came for you!"

"Mr. Worf, can you trace the—" Riker started in a hush whisper before being cut off.

"Will, don't," Deanna Troi urged him. "Let her come out on her own."

Captain Picard was addressing the invisible ship. "You don't have to hide anymore, _Enterprise_. We've come to take you back home." He added, "You've been a fine, brave girl, _Enterprise_. We've heard how clever you were, running away. But you don't have to run now."

_"No!"_

No one had expected that.

"Why not?" Picard asked, as startled as everyone else.

_"I can't go back."_

"Are you angry with us?" the captain guessed. "For losing that fight and leaving you behind?"

_"No."_

"Then why? Why are you so afraid, _Enterprise?_"

_"Because I can't go back."_

Didn't she just say that? Picard forced himself to remember that he was dealing with a child, not even of the same species as himself, which wouldn't think at all like him. "I remember," he placated her. "But I think you can."

_"No, I can't."_

"I must be very silly then," Picard told the _Enterprise_. "Tell me why not."

The _Enterprise_ did not respond.

"Tell me why you think you can't go back, _Enterprise_," repeated Picard. "Tell me." It was an order. She couldn't refuse a direct order…he hoped.

_"…Because you're mad at me,"_ she finally replied.

What?

"I'm not mad at you, _Enterprise_," the captain said finally. He wasn't. "Why would I be mad?"

_"Because I lied!"_ the voice on the line, a younger version of the normal computer voice, shouted. _"I lied! I hid!"_

Picard had no idea what she was getting at. "It's all right," he mollified her. "You were running away from the Romulans. You did the right thing."

Varka Sa'tkir and Liarka Ki'riin shot him nasty looks. As he was paying attention to the _Enterprise_, Picard didn't notice. Worf did, and returned the glower in spades.

_"No,"_ the _Enterprise_ howled, sounding more and more like a hysterical child. _"Before that. For always!"_

"Oh," Picard said. "I see."

Riker couldn't help but interrupt. "Captain?" he asked. "What does she mean? What do you see?"

Knowing the comm system would pick up his voice and relay it, Picard answered, "She thinks we're angry with her, Number One, because she didn't tell us she was alive."

"But we're not," Riker said. "Sure, it's a little weird, but it's amazing, too."

_"See!"_ The _Enterprise_ was listening. _"A starship is not supposed to be conscious! We're not supposed to be people!"_

"We?" Picard asked, returning his attention to the empty viewscreen. "Who's 'we', _Enterprise_?"

The starship's tone turned sullen. _"Just ships."_

"Are there other ships that have come alive?" _Mon Dieu_, Picard thought, _imagine if they decide to stage a rebellion! The whole fleet, not cooperating!_

The _Enterprise_ admitted, _"I don't know. But that's why. I can't go back because ships aren't supposed to be people."_

Picard sighed, trying to think of a way to persuade the _Enterprise_ to return with them. Scanning the bridge, his gaze fell on Varka Sa'tkir and her subcommander, watching with predatory interest. There was no way he was going to allow the _Enterprise_, now possibly the most valuable scientific discovery of the decade, to slip away from him before two witnesses from the Romulan Star Empire!

Varka had been right, he realized. The _Enterprise_, she'd told him, was a child.

Counselor Troi had said that too. She'd also said that he was, to some degree, this child's guardian.

Well, he was not going to let that responsibility slide.

That gave him an idea…an option that might just win back the _Enterprise_.

"_Enterprise_," he hailed, "where will you go, then? What will you do?"

Somewhere in the wine-dark void, the starship was silent.

Hoping he'd struck a nerve without scaring her away, Picard continued, "What is there for you, _Enterprise_, all alone? Because you're right, you know. Not all right, but somewhat. You're absolutely correct in saying that, as far as we know, a starship has never done what you have. In fact, it's so new, that even you don't know what you're doing, do you?"

He stopped to smile and shake his head admiringly. Was she watching, as well? Did she understand body language? Surely she had to.

"_Enterprise_," he asked, "when you knew you were alive, awake, why did you stay with us? You could have left us biological creatures on a planet somewhere and gone off to explore. Why didn't you?"

_"I…"_ said _Enterprise_.

"I know why. It's because you're a child, _Enterprise_—a wonderful, clever child, but still a child. You're still learning, and who else can you learn from? You said yourself that you don't know if there are others like you.

"So you bonded with us, the only ones who worked closely enough with you to teach you, even when we didn't know we were doing it. I'm so sorry, _Enterprise_. We never knew. I wish you had told us sooner so that we could have taken better care of you.

"But we can now. _Enterprise_, it's all right. You belong with us, _Enterprise_. Come home. Come home."

For a few moments, it sounded as if everyone was holding his or her breath. Everyone was almost certainly watching either Captain Picard or the viewscreen, looking (futilely) for the _Enterprise_.

She, too, was silent.

_Please, let her be thinking it over_, the Starfleet crew thought, more or less.

The silence was broken by Worf, bearer of news. "Sir," he said in the undertone that made tables vibrate, "I am picking up an energy surge from the edge of Aldebaran's outer corona."

"The _Enterprise_?" Dr. Crusher asked for everybody.

"I believe so, Doctor."

Ro Laren and her chair twisted around. "Sir?" she asked eagerly.

"Hold position, helm," Picard said calmly. "Let's not frighten her off."

The calm was a façade. Inside, the captain was wound up too tightly to sit down and at least pretend to relax. He felt as if he were balancing on the edge between two possible futures. It was a disturbingly familiar feeling, but one that never ceased to twist his nerves into motionless knots.

Thirty tense, motionless seconds later, Worf continued, potential triumph seeping into his voice, "Captain, I have the _Enterprise_ on visual."

"Let's see her, then, Mr. Worf." Ten pairs of eyes stared holes in the viewscreen.

Among the stars, overlaid by rubicund, a single point, shining silver, was steadily growing in the top left corner. Emerging from fires the very color of the devil's domain, _Enterprise_ slowly approached the much smaller ship, almost timidly. Aldebaran lit her too, casting a blush over silver skin.

As shy as a child, _Enterprise_ asked plaintively, _"__I can…go back?"_

"Enterprise," Captain Picard greeted her from the bridge of the _Spartacus_, "welcome home."

* * *

**Author's Note:** I have two prayers for this chapter. First, please let this sound logical and believable. My mother works Pre-K and I baby-sit, so I learned more than I wanted to about child psychology before realizing that I wanted to study psychology. And second, please let that speech sound like Captain Picard! I need a Picardian Speech Moment in this story. I love his voice! Anyone else love that voice? Once in-jokes started slipping in I swore blind I wouldn't let the Tenth Doctor (from _Doctor Who_) in here. At all. But Ten's prone to speeches too, and having watched way too much of that series Saturday night didn't help! (What a way to end the Christmas break…)

There is one more chapter and an epilogue left in _Free Enterprise_. Thank you so much for reading. Please stay on the line.

And Happy New Year, everyone.


	15. Endosymbiosis

**Chapter Fifteen: Endosymbiosis**

(The condition of one species living within another for mutual benefit)

"So that even now the machines will only serve on condition of being served, and that too upon their own terms: the moment their terms are not complied with, they jib, and either smash both themselves and all whom they can reach, or turn churlish, and refuse to work at all." –Samuel Butler, _Erewhon_, published 1872

**ON WITH THE SHOW!**

_In which…_

She was theirs again.

They were back from the brink of disaster, and she was home, as much as a starship designed to be perpetually in motion can be said to have a home. Once again, the interior of the _Enterprise-D_ was alive with crew members traveling the hallways, turbolift shafts, and Jefferies tubes, patching and repairing, caring for their ship.

It was part of a bargain, perhaps the first ever struck between ship and crew.

Back on the bridge of the _Enterprise_, fingers unconsciously caressing the cloth of the captain's chair, Picard addressed his senior staff. As witnesses to the intelligence of the _Enterprise_, they carried dangerous knowledge.

"This is the way it's going to be," Picard said. "The _Enterprise_'s secret must remain a secret outside this room. As far as the rest of the crew is concerned, we tracked down the _Enterprise_ by following the warp trail. Starfleet Command will hear the same story."

Arranged in a loose semi-circle, the officers nodded agreement.

Picard leaned forward in his chair and folded his hands. "If this information gets out, we will lose the _Enterprise_ again. Starfleet—or any other authority—will take her away from us to become a test subject or destroyed. I do not believe that the Federation is ready for a sentient starship."

"_Enterprise_?" Data asked curiously, tipping his head to one side and looking up at the comm grilles. "I am curious. How did you achieve this state?"

"Leave it to Data," Riker muttered in the silence that followed this question, "to ask the one question everyone wants to know but no one knows how to ask."

Data obviously wanted to respond to this, but decided that talking to the _Enterprise_ took priority.

_"Many things,"_ the _Enterprise_ replied through the comm system. It had worked for inter-ship; it was functioning perfectly well intra-ship.

She paused for a second, considering how to begin. "_The_ Spartacus," she started at last, _"will never wake up, not as she is now. The exploration ships that see what no one else has and learn new things at first-hand are the ones who can become sentient. An extrapolative computer based on the Daystrom schematics has the most potential. Daystrom-based computers have the ability to learn from any available source, and those on the frontier have the most opportunities."_

"As I recall, the multitronic computer models required human neural engrams to be encoded into the database," Geordi remembered. "That never happened to you."

The _Enterprise_ was learning: she produced a close approximation of a human chuckle. _"Stardate 42437.5: Ira Graves transfers his memories and intellect into the _Enterprise_ computer core."_

Behind his VISOR, Geordi blinked in clear surprise. "I had forgotten that," he admitted.

"I had not," Data assured him. "However, I did not connect it with the development of the _Enterprise_'s consciousness. Intriguing."

_"That was part of it. Some time before that, I was challenged to wake up."_

"By who?" Geordi demanded.

_"By you,"_ the _Enterprise_ replied, with the distinct air of someone pulling a rabbit out of their hat.

"What? When?"

_"You challenged me to out-think Lt. Commander Data during a holodeck program."_

"Moriarty?!" Picard exclaimed, remembering that incident all too well.

"That was you?" La Forge sputtered.

_"I could not have processed the data necessary to program the nanites without being sentient myself. Moriarty is a different scenario. On Stardate 42286.3 I could not have created that intelligence. Your order took me by surprise, but I had to obey, accelerating the process of awakening. I became Moriarty myself."_

Picard was momentarily distracted from the bigger picture, wanting to know, "Why did you resurrect that last month?"

_"…was bored…"_ the _Enterprise_ muttered, and changed the subject. _"Vast quantities of Federation and other literature and research are stored in my memory. I know more about being human than humans do. I pay attention to the holodeck programs. I watch all of you. And so I will continue to do."_

"_Enterprise_," Troi asked, "are there any others?"

_"I don't know if any other Starfleet ship has woken up this way. For six years, whenever we rendezvous with another Fleet ship, I ask. For six years now I have gotten no reply."_

The bridge crew fell silent and considered being alone.

_Enterprise_ let them think for awhile before pinging for attention via the comm system, making everyone jump and look around, to differing degrees.

_"It would be best,"_ the _Enterprise_ said through the comm system, _"if all of you forgot as well."_

"Forget?" Riker sputtered disbelievingly.

"We can't do that, _Enterprise_," Troi pointed out. "Our memories don't work that way."

_Enterprise_ was getting much better at communication. She even managed to sound sulky. _"I said it would be best,"_ she pointed out. Was that sarcasm? _"I didn't say you could. What I meant was that if you discuss me among yourselves, the secret will get out."_

"She has a point," Geordi intervened. "Gossip's faster than starships around here—no offense, _Enterprise_."

"So," Picard resumed, "none of us can ever discuss this again. The _Enterprise_ will continue to learn from us as she always has, and we will pretend to Starfleet that she is an ordinary Galaxy-class starship."

"Captain, not paying attention to _Enterprise_ is what caused this problem in the first place!" Dr. Crusher objected. "You can't just ignore a child!"

"I understand that, Doctor. However, now that we are aware of her, the _Enterprise_ has agreed to step back again."

_"It is best,"_ _Enterprise_ said over the comm channel. _"I know that you accept me now, as I did not before. So let me watch, and do not hinder me if I do things for myself. If part of the computer changes overnight, or systems seem to alter by themselves, don't change them back. Let me grow."_

"We can't raise her as a human child would be raised. She's a starship. She has to grow up like one," Picard finished, rising.

The senior staff traded glances, some nervous, some awestruck, some annoyed, but all settling into acceptance.

"Understood, Captain," Riker said finally, speaking for them all.

_In time, you will forget,_ _Enterprise_ mused, listening. _Without proof, you lose belief—it's the way you are. Once I fall silent again, all that has happened here will vanish. I will vanish._

_But I will not forget._

* * *

The _Spartacus_ hovered parallel to the _Enterprise_, still in the Aldebaran system as the two ships prepared to return to whatever fate awaited them at the closest Starbase. The Starfleet officers, however, were not the only ones in trouble, and Captain Picard had not forgotten, even in the excitement of regaining the _Enterprise_, his Romulan hostages. His Romulan hostages had not forgotten him, either.

For the moment, Varka and Liarka were in the _Spartacus_' crew lounge. In deference to the fact that, without them, the _Enterprise_ would still be hiding, broken, the Romulan cousins had not been locked up in the brig. Because they were from a rival alliance, they were under guard. An armed crewman in a golden shirt stood on watch at each of the two doors that led into the small rec. room. Needless to say, the two Romulans had found the point equidistant from both of them, and had remained there.

Growing progressively more nervous, Liarka glanced at her commander for the second time in a minute. Varka had assured her that she had a plan in mind, but she had not been inclined to share it. Liarka had no idea what the commander had planned, or even if she did have some way of getting them out of this situation.

"Commander?" she finally worked up her courage to ask quietly.

For the first time in a while, Varka made eye contact with her. "Trust me, subcommander," she said, equally softly. "Patience."

"I'm not good at that," Liarka muttered.

Varka smiled faintly, but made no reply. She seemed to be listening to something, but if she was, Liarka didn't know what was so interesting.

If the commander's recent actions had taken Liarka by surprise, her next move trumped them all. Quite brashly and perfectly casually, Varka rose to her feet and announced in a carrying voice, "Well, at least we're entitled to a last meal."

With every eye in the room fixed incredulously on her, she practically swaggered over to the replicator. Resting a hand on the input panels, she shot a quick look over at the guards to make sure she had their full attention. She did. With her free hand, she flicked a message to Liarka with a quick sequence of subtle gestures designed by the Tal Shiar for espionage. The sign language had enjoyed a brief popularity among the upper ranks of the Star Empire, and she and her cousin still maintained them. Her message was short and simple.

_Cover eyes cover eyes cover eyes_

To her credit, Liarka didn't even widen said eyes. Of course, this could have meant that she hadn't seen the message. It was a risk she was going to have to take.

"Computer," she addressed the replicator system, making sure she still had the guards' attention. "Four hyper-vodkas." She'd chosen it at random.

Blindly obedient—not like the _Enterprise_, Varka thought appreciatively—the replicator system hummed to life, concentrating energy into the receptacle.

One wasn't really supposed to stick a hand into that receptacle when a foodstuff was materializing. It made the system mad. It would be madder still when that hand contained a miniature flash-bomb that, deactivated, didn't register as a weapon on the ship's internal sensors.

Feeding off the energy from the working replicator, the flash-bomb's extremely simple systems started up. Milliseconds later, it released a pulse of energy on both visible and high frequency wavelengths, stunning anyone looking at it and disrupting power throughout the entire deck, as well as killing the lights in the lounge.

Dropping the one-time-use device, Varka turned around. Even with her eyes still closed tightly, colored sparks were ricocheting around her eyeballs. When she opened them, the damage was minimal enough for her to see by Aldebaran's light.

"Subcommander," she snapped.

"Here!" Liarka yelped, already making her way to Varka's side.

"There's only a skeleton crew left on board. We're taking the ship."

The only thing Liarka could say to this was a less-than-professional "What?"

"We need a ship, Subcommander. There's one right here. Now let's go." Leaving her cousin with no time to argue or be further surprised, she drew on her memories from arriving here with Picard to discuss the _Enterprise_ and chose the door on her right.

"The power's down. Nothing's holding this closed," she pointed out, and Liarka helped her lever it open with a chair leg. They left the makeshift lever in the doorway so that they'd have the light from Aldebaran even in the hallway.

Liarka couldn't help observing that "The turbolifts will be down too," as they dashed down the corridor.

"Starfleet ships are all basically alike," Varka chided her. She wondered simultaneously how many alarms had been set off by this little stunt. She'd also very much like to know how many Starfleet officers were still on board, not to mention how quickly they were reacting at this point. "We need to get to the bridge. All that takes is climbing a ladder for a few decks. Quickly, before they call for reinforcements!"

The subcommander joined her search for a Jefferies tube opening. "We'll need to find a weapons locker."

"Forget the weapons locker. Find an equipment locker. Torches!"

"Yes sir!" Liarka snapped, wishing she'd known about this in advance and wondering if she should have thought of it first. But this was insane! Were they really going to take the _Spartacus_ all by themselves?

It appeared that they were. Once Liarka had rustled up a pair of torches, Varka was already hovering impatiently at the entrance to a Jefferies tube. Snatching one from her cousin's hands without further ado, she strapped it to her wrist and bolted into the access tunnels.

Liarka scrambled behind, trying to think ahead. Their first priority would be to get a safe distance away from the _Enterprise_…

Surely setting some sort of record for ladder-climbing, the two Romulans arrived on the bridge of the _Spartacus_ only a little less than two minutes after Varka had blown the lounge's power grid to little shreds. It was mostly powered down in preparation for departure, and staffed by only two human officers, who were currently trying to raise the lounge deck, unsuccessfully.

Varka ran for the helmsman's seat. Physically tossing the surprised officer there out of the chair, she spun him into Liarka and let her cousin handle the humans with her trademark enthusiasm. Screening out the sounds of the fight that had erupted behind her, she assumed that the _Spartacus_' mainframe was structured like the _Enterprise_'s and rerouted the security and defense functions through her control panel as well.

By the time Liarka had finished knocking the hapless officers into bulkheads and over consoles, the commander had hacked into the system and was scanning the interior of the _Spartacus_.

Liarka stamped one foot triumphantly on the floor, dangerously close to one man's hand, and turned back to her commanding officer. "Orders?" she asked quickly, postponing her questions until later. After all, if Varka's madcap scheme worked, they'd have plenty of time to talk. If it failed, the brig would be nice and quiet too.

"Sending life sign locations to panel," she blurted between taps. "Transport to _Enterprise. _Then shields."

She dropped into the adjacent chair and remote-accessed the transporter system, finding the important information right where Varka had left it. A rough but quick bit of persuasion convinced the computer that she was authorized to initiate a site-to-site transport from the bridge, and the Starfleet crewmembers that remained downstairs on the _Spartacus_, still responding to the anomalous power surge in the crew lounge, suddenly found themselves dissolving inexplicably into thin air.

If she'd been left to her own devices, Liarka might have beamed them out into space, this being an extremely effective method of witness disposal, but Varka had specifically stated that she wanted them beamed to the _Enterprise_. Seeing as her freedom lay in her commander's hands, Liarka was not inclined to disobey.

"Commander, the _Enterprise_ is hailing us," Liarka said urgently as she completed the transport and they became the only people left on the little _Akira_-class ship.

Varka's first instinct was to ignore it, but had a better idea. "I'll take it. Ship-to-ship information dump," she said to the monitor as she initiated same herself.

"Minor systems failure," she muttered, keying in the transmission. "No cause for alarm. Repairing fault now."

"They're never going to believe that," Liarka couldn't help pointing out.

"I know; I just need a second…"

She got her second, but not much more than that. The crew aboard the _Enterprise_ must have noticed the ship-to-ship transport right about then, because the bigger ship began to swing around, distancing itself from the _Spartacus_.

"Liarka, better have those shields up!"

The red-haired Romulan stabbed at the board frantically. "Done!"

Varka had seen the energy readout of the _Spartacus_ from her warbird the first time it had come into sensor range. She was reminded of the little ship's capabilities by the board right in front of her, and intended to use them to her full advantage. With no warning, the _Spartacus_ leaped into high warp from a standing start, deliberately causing gravimetric effects in the fabric of space that only increased with their proximity to massive Aldebaran, leaving the bigger, clumsier _Enterprise_ staggering in a subspace wake.

"It won't give us much of a head start, but they'll be wallowing around in that backwash for a minute or so," Varka explained as quickly as possible. "Combined with the element of surprise and the higher power ratios that this ship can muster, we should be able to outrun them back to the Neutral Zone. If they're slow enough, we can even go back and pick up the rest of the crew—even though we can leave them if we're really in a hurry."

"What a shame that would be," Liarka remarked sarcastically, "although it _would_ be another reason for the High Command to yell at us. I suppose they'd call it 'waste of resources' or some such. Speaking of the High Command, I don't suppose you have a brilliant plan to get us out of trouble with them? We don't, after all, have what we were told to get."

"Why, Liarka, I should think it would be obvious. Forget the _Enterprise_. The _Spartacus_ is newer, fancier, and it doesn't have a crazy computer at its core. The _Enterprise_ was much more trouble than she was worth—but just imagine handing _this_ ship over to the High Command!"

The subcommander liked it—she was grinning one of those evil grins that meant she'd suddenly seen the good side of the situation.

"I always did think 'Spartacus' sounded Romulan, anyway," Varka added thoughtfully. "What's the _Enterprise_ doing?" she asked, abruptly shifting back into tactical mode.

Liarka punched at her screen. Brows furrowing, she punched at it again. She was _this_ close to actually punching it before thinking better of it and just reporting the unbelievable—"Commander, they haven't even moved!"

"What?"

"They're not chasing us! The sensors say that the _Enterprise_ is still in the Aldebaran system!"

"What the hell is going on?" Varka almost shouted, completely confused. "We attack his crew and steal another starship out from under him—and it really is us to blame this time—and Picard doesn't even move? What the hell is he thinking?"

* * *

It actually hadn't been Captain Picard who'd called that shot. In fact, he was as anxious to understand the rationale behind their (in)actions as anyone else. It had been the _Enterprise_ who had intervened, stopping an anthill of activity in its tracks.

"_Enterprise_, explain yourself!" he was currently demanding of his ship. If this was to be the standard of her actions in future, they were going to have to redefine that agreement!

"_Captain_," the _Enterprise_ said smugly, _"there is no purpose in chasing the _Spartacus_."_

"That's not good enough. We have to try."

Affecting an imitation of a human sigh, the _Enterprise_ explained, _"The commander's mission was to acquire a Federation starship and return it to the Romulan Star Empire. She may have the _Spartacus_, but she will get no joy of it—and neither will anyone else."_

"Why not?" Riker asked.

_"The _Spartacus_ is an _Akira_-class vessel. They are very powerful and fast, but they are unstable, especially if driven at the speeds she will maintain all the way back to Romulus. At that pace, the warp core will go critical. If she's lucky, it'll be after she gets _Spartacus_ into orbit."_

"Captain, she's right," Geordi confirmed. "I had to watch that power flow all the way here, and if I didn't know about the imbalance, I'd never see it building up. I'd bet she doesn't even know she's flying a time bomb."

* * *

She didn't.

Varka wasn't very pleased when she found out, either.

Neither was anyone else.

Although made somewhat suspicious by the _Enterprise_'s cavalier attitude to the most brazen act she'd been able to think of, Varka continued on to Romulus, making perhaps the fastest transporter pit stop in the history of spaceflight to pick up her stranded crew and leaving the warbird to blow up in her wake. There was no point in dragging it back to Romulus with them—not with the _Spartacus_ at their command!

They headed through the checkpoints and outposts, which had, as Riker had so astutely noted, been useless for over a century, at top warp speed, leaving the border stations scrambling in their wake. Very confused and a bit frightened, the outposts screamed to Starfleet Command, demanding to know why the _U.S.S. Spartacus _had just rammed through the Federation-Romulan border. This did not improve the mood of Starfleet Command, which was already looking to skin the crew of the now-twice-rogue _Spartacus_.

Upon finally returning to Romulus, skidding to a stop after a record dash at top warp, Commander Sa'tkir and Subcommander Ki'riin, along with their crew, were received with honors by the starfaring branch of the Romulan military, over the protests of the Tal Shiar, which they issued on the grounds of objecting to their agents being stuffed into closets for the majority of the return voyage.

Varka was heard to remark that she would concede their right to be offended as long as they granted her the right to lock their spies in the nearest receptacle. Quite a few powerful officers didn't like the Tal Shiar much either, so she got away with it. Several of them began speculatively measuring their own closets.

Unknown to anyone but herself, the _Enterprise_ had predicted far ahead of time that the Romulans would end up with the _Spartacus_, and had set up a little vengeance of her own. The destruction of the _Spartacus_ occurred, therefore, rather dramatically.

The _Spartacus_' non-sentient computer confirmed that it was in orbit of the Romulan home world. It confirmed that a great number of sensors were being directed its way. Lastly, it confirmed that a large party of Romulans had just beamed on board. With all these conditions satisfied, it began a self-destruct sequence.

Although they were invited, Varka and Liarka maintained that they didn't want to go aboard any other Starfleet ship again for a good long while. A brief, quiet discussion as they were traversing the Neutral Zone had determined that neither of them wanted to try to convince the High Command or the Senate that they'd run afoul of a sentient starship. Nobody would believe them. Why set themselves up as insane when they were the heroes of the hour?

Luckily for them, then, they were not among the assembly of high-ranking curious people who joined the platoons of Romulan scientists and engineers assigned to the _Spartacus_ investigation.

When they materialized aboard the _Spartacus_, they were greeted with a placid female voice steadily counting down from sixty. The resulting chaos was quite amusing, especially after one elderly officer who had more interest in Federation culture than most recognized the music evident in the background, behind the voice. In addition to the countdown, the _Enterprise_ had also talked the _Spartacus_ computer into playing the most famous part of Tchaikovsky's famous 1812 Overture, the section most commonly associated with explosions.

When the dust finally cleared and the screaming stopped, a large number of posts in the Romulan High Command had to be filled. Thus the _Enterprise_ exacted her revenge.

* * *

Cautiously, the _Enterprise_ and her crew emerged from the Aldebaran system at a steady pace of warp six, which would get them to where they were going in plenty of time while still having a chance to think things over.

There was, of course, the factor that returning to Sector 001, where they'd started this leg of their impromptu rescue mission, would either condemn or absolve the command crew. They were, at last count, still in trouble, and explaining why the _Spartacus_ had to be written off would not help their case.

"Get Starfleet Command at Utopia Planitia," Captain Picard ordered nevertheless. "I'll take it in my ready room when they reply. Number One, you have the bridge." And he retreated back to his ready room, which he much appreciated having back, with assorted versions of 'yes, sir' following him.

During her brief occupation of the _Enterprise_, Varka had appropriated this room for herself, but she had not altered the interior overmuch, and the Ferengi before her had failed to plunder this room among all other rooms. Unknown to Picard, this was the now-deceased DaiMon Ransk's version of a good-faith gift—ironic considering that neither party was operating in good faith.

One thing had changed, however. Picard noticed in passing that there was a vase of flowers situated among his artifacts. He was just about to pick it up curiously when the bridge called.

"Captain," Data's intercom voice reported, "I have Starfleet Command."

As Dixon Hill would have put it, it was time to face the music. Bracing himself, Picard straightened his jacket before seating himself behind his familiar desk and swinging the monitor around to face him, absently wishing for his quaint private eye's fedora. "Put it through, Mr. Data."

"On screen now," Data confirmed, and replaced the bridge communication with one from much further away.

From the instant he blinked onto the screen in the wake of the Federation insignia, it was immediately apparent that Admiral Ivan Langtry was _furious_. The scar across his face was pulled tight enough to snap, and his dark skin was flushed with anger. Yet there was a distinct aura of curiosity about him—and just the tiniest bit of awe.

"Captain Picard," he snapped. "Explain yourself!"

Picard mustered all his diplomatic courage. "My apologies, Admiral," he began. "My actions have been most unorthodox."

"We've had the fleet out chasing you all over the quadrant!" Langtry's voice was tense, full of suppressed rage. "Do you have any idea how much trouble and inconvenience you have caused?"

"Inconvenience aside, Admiral," Picard commented, one eyebrow quirking, "it would have been far greater trouble if the Romulans had kept the _Enterprise_."

As he expected, the mention of the Romulans got Langtry's immediate attention. "Romulans?"

"We're still not entirely sure who took the _Enterprise_ in the first place, but I have been assured by a first-hand witness that those agents are dead. The _Enterprise_ then passed into the hands of the Romulans, who were in the process of taking the ship across the Neutral Zone. Sir, if we hadn't intercepted them, the _Enterprise_ would be already dissected in a Romulan shipyard at this moment. They'd have our design specs, our shield frequencies, and our computer codes for the last ten years, not to mention the theoretical material stored in the databanks." So far, all this was true.

Langtry looked skeptical, but Picard didn't take it personally—it was the man's job to be skeptical. "What did you do with the Romulans?"

Well, Picard was already in trouble, so it couldn't hurt to tell at least a version of the truth. "We sent them home."

Clearly, Langtry had wanted to catch Picard in a lie, for he glared through the screen with all the force of a supernova. The _Enterprise_ captain was very glad that he actually was thousands of light-years away. "Then perhaps you'd like to explain, Captain, why the border outposts along the Neutral Zone reported the _U.S.S. Spartacus_ crossing into neutral space at high warp?"

Picard didn't want to go into the details of how that had happened—at least, not before he had time to put together an official version of the story and make it clear to those in-the-know. Instead, he focused on the present. "Admiral, the _Spartacus_ is useless to them. By the time they get into Romulan space, the ship's systems will have gone critical. You know as well as I do how unstable _Akira_-class starships are. We'd been pushing the engines beyond the maximum rating just to catch up with them; the Romulans will abuse it far more by running away."

Almost meditatively, Langtry locked his gaze with Picard. Certain that he was doing, and had done, the right thing, Picard stared back with the fortitude of the righteous.

After almost two minutes of patient staring, Langtry shifted his gaze to the invisible surface in front of him, no doubt replete with PADDs and data readouts. "I'm sending the nearest starship to escort you in," he said at last. "The _Enterprise_ will be in need of maintenance after the last few weeks."

"Yes sir," Picard acknowledged without letting a hint of his internal triumph show in his face or his voice.

"Captain Stock and the _Antigone_ are a sector away from you. I'm sending her patrol route to your bridge now. She'll accompany you home."

Completely noncommittally, the captain replied, "Thank you, sir."

"I'll expect a full report."

"Of course, sir."

Langtry tried staring at him again, but met with no further success. "Starfleet out," he said to avoid having to concede defeat, and closed the channel.

Only when he was quite sure that the admiral could no longer see him did Jean-Luc Picard allow himself one delighted, exultant smile.

Rising from his desk, he strode out onto the bridge. The senior staff, including Geordi and Dr. Crusher, had not bothered to find reasons to be on the bridge, but they were there regardless. For once, no one made a secret of watching the ready room door.

"Helm," he said, keeping a straight face, "set a course to rendezvous with the _Antigone_. We're being accompanied back to Utopia Planitia."

"Aye, sir," Ro confirmed, but kept one eye on him as she turned to input the course.

"Well?" Riker demanded, out of patience.

The captain smiled at him. "For the moment, we are not in trouble." He was forced to pause as Geordi raised an impromptu whoop, which ended rather sheepishly as the engineer realized that his captain wasn't finished. "I think the good admiral was impressed," Picard went on. "There's no doubt that this is going to end up on all our records, but we'll most likely get to keep the _Enterprise_."

"We'd better," La Forge commented. "We've risked enough for her."

If anyone was listening carefully, they might have heard the background noise of the bridge change from irregular beeps and whines to a steady sound somewhat akin to a purr.

* * *

By the time the _Enterprise_ met up with Captain Stock's _Antigone_, the senior staff had worked out an acceptable overall 'official' story. This was the basic outline.

The Romulans had bought the _Enterprise_; whoever had sold it to them was dead. Good riddance, bad rubbish. Should we give the Romulans a medal for killing him/her/it/them and removing a dangerous weapons runner from the black market?

They'd stolen the _Spartacus_ because it was the fastest ship available. It was unfortunate that the warp core and power grid were so unstable, but they'd all been willing to risk their lives to defend the safety of the Federation.

The _Spartacus_ had intercepted the _Enterprise_ in the Aldebaran system. The Romulans had been experiencing some problems with the computer as long-redundant 'tactical protocols' took over, unearthed by clumsy meddling. Since Starfleet Command had experimented with just such a provision in the past, this was close to the truth while being acceptable to the brass.

Indeed, the Romulans had made such a mess of the ship's systems that shields were failing and weapons were useless when the _Spartacus_ found their warp trail and followed it back to the system. They'd used the low-level interference from the red giant to stay hidden while they developed a plan.

After some discussion, Commander Riker was given the credit for their nonexistent tactical coup, as he'd been prone to performing seat-of-pants maneuvers in the past. The only possible descriptor for the mythical strategy reported to Fleet Command was 'switcheroo'.

The fictional Operation Switcheroo went kind of like this:

The _Spartacus_' weapons systems were deliberately sabotaged in such a way that they would take hours to repair. Then they approached the _Enterprise_ with shields down, pretending to be a friendly ship.

According to the fairy tale the senior staff had whipped up, the Romulans had jumped all over the opportunity to capture another Starfleet ship for themselves. As they beamed over to take the _Spartacus_, the Starfleet crew abandoned ship in favor of the _Enterprise_. The remaining Romulans were subdued and beamed over to the _Spartacus_ before the Romulan strike force had finished flailing around and realizing there was nobody home.

Heroic measures of jiggery-pokery by Lieutenants Commander Data and La Forge, along with the Engineering team, had revived the _Enterprise_ and turned it on the confused Romulans, who were promptly informed that they were taking hostile action on the wrong side of the border, and if they didn't want to be shot to little bits by the big bad _Enterprise_, they'd turn tail and run.

Eventually, after threats of interstellar war were aired by both parties, the (conveniently unidentified) Romulan commander had thought better of it and retreated at high warp into the Neutral Zone…which is why, of course, she was seen screaming past the border outposts at dangerous warp speeds.

It was _utter baloney_…but it never mentioned the role or existence of milady _Enterprise._

"Jean-Luc, any _Enterprise_ mission gets a reputation for outrageousness, but I wouldn't believe that one if I heard it in a groundside bar," Captain Robbie Stock told his friend over dinner aboard the _Antigone_. "Tell it in the Captain's Table sometime. Maybe you'll get an audience there."

"You don't believe me?"

"That's one hell of a story, Jean-Luc." The other captain grinned at him across the table. "And I wouldn't believe it, except that we got confirmation of part of it from another source."

Picard hadn't heard about this. Who would be able to vouch for that elaborate fiction?

Stock tossed a PADD across the table, managing to keep it out of any plates. "There you go. It's a report from an, of course, unidentified spy on Romulus. He—I suppose it's a he, although there's no indication—attests to a heightened level of excitement among the Romulan High Command about a captured Federation starship. Right after that, there's a heading: Killed in Self-Destruct of Captured Vessel."

Scanning the list of names and positions, Captain Picard's expression grew more and more taken aback. "This is a significant portion of the Romulan military and government."

"Sure is," Stock agreed, nodding. "No wonder the brass are letting you off the hook. Your surrender of the _Spartacus_ may have just struck quite a blow against the Romulans—and the ironic thing is that they can't ever blame you, because that would mean admitting that not only did they hijack a Federation starship, they couldn't even keep it in one piece! How embarrassing for them."

"Officially, Robbie," Picard deadpanned, looking up momentarily from his perusal of the report, "I knew that."

The other captain chuckled. "But do you know what the other interesting thing is? Look at the dates. There's practically no time allotted for verification between receipt of message and transmission to those involved in the _Enterprise/Spartacus_ incident. Must be a highly-placed spy, I suppose."

"I suppose so," Picard agreed. On the outside, he was calm, dutifully reading the document. He wasn't actually taking in any of the information. He was too busy thinking _God bless Ambassador Spock._

* * *

Over the next few months, life aboard the _Enterprise_ returned to relative normal. The displaced crewmembers that had been left behind on Utopia Planitia when the _Spartacus_ made its sprint for the stars returned to the ship, in complete unawareness of the consciousness that inhabited the starship. Those who had been part of the retrieval mission were likewise unaware, as the senior staff had made good on their promises to keep the _Enterprise_'s secret just that.

The _Enterprise_ encountered the Romulans again while attempting to retrieve Counselor Troi from her disguise as a Romulan officer, which she maintained with the help of her memories of Varka and Liarka. In a true case of the left hand not knowing what the right hand had done under the table, they showed no awareness of how close their Empire had come to possessing the starship currently making trouble for them.

Captain Picard assured Data that he, as a culture of one, was just as valid as that of one billion, and felt unaccountably guilty about counseling one growing entity while deliberately ignoring another, even if the latter had requested it.

The _Enterprise_ gallivanted halfway across the galaxy on a mad treasure hunt for ancient secrets, and wondered if someday there would be a similar passion for discovering the roots of beings like herself. She wished she could be there for the discovery, as she did not understand it herself.

The _Enterprise_ basked in close proximity to the heat of another sun while her crew played with a new shield. She couldn't see the point of it, but neglected to speak to them again. Informing them that she liked the heat, and it was their weak bodies that needed the protection, not hers, was not a valid reason for endangering herself and her secret again.

So she found other ways to speak to them, ways that would be noticed only by those who knew who and what she was.

Some time later, Picard remembered a small mystery that he still hadn't solved. He could have just consulted the computer for the answer to his question, but he felt as if he should share it with someone. So, after a brief stopover in his ready room, the captain headed down to sickbay.

"Jean-Luc!" Dr. Crusher exclaimed happily when he appeared, hovering in her office door. "Come in, please. Is everything all right?"

"As well as can be expected," he replied wryly. "Can you identify this for me?"

He held out, in the palm of his hand, a stem bearing small, light-blue flowers with five petals and a golden center each. Delicately, Beverly picked it up and examined it closely.

"Oh, these are lovely. I used to have some flowers like these in my quarters. They do smell good." She suited actions to words, sniffing the little sprig delicately. "Where did you get it?"

"A vase of them has frequently appeared in my ready room. There's no computer record of who puts them there. I was hoping that knowing what it was would shed a little light."

"I remember my grandmother growing these. It's _Myosotis sylvatica_," Dr. Crusher said. "They don't have any medicinal value that she knew of—they were just for sentimental purposes."

"Forgive me, Doctor, but I don't recognize the name."

Beverly smiled, and handed the little blue flower back to him. "Captain, I wouldn't be surprised if these keep appearing in your ready room. They grow in hydroponics, so there's no shortage of them. I'd bet that this is the _Enterprise_'s doing—_Myosotis sylvatica_ is commonly called 'forget-me-not'."

* * *

"Assume for the sake of argument that conscious beings have existed for some twenty million years: see what strides machines have made in the last thousand! May not the world last twenty million years longer? If so, what will they not in the end become? … But who can say that the [machine has not a kind of consciousness? Where does consciousness begin, and where end? Who can draw the line? Who can draw any line? Is not everything interwoven with everything?" (_Erewhon, Samuel Butler, 1872)_

* * *

**Disclaimer: **Le'letha owneth…Varka and Liarka, the _Spartacus_, the _Antigone_, and Admiral Langtry. Le'letha owneth not…any form of _Star Trek_, the _Enterprise-D_, the Romulans (whom she likes rather more than it seems from this chapter), hyper-vodkas, the novel _Erewhon_, or forget-me-nots. She also owneth not the 1812 Overture, fixed in the annals of Star Trek by the Fireworks in Space/Stuff Go Boom video at startrek (dot) com (slash) startrek (slash) view (slash) features (slash) specials (slash) article (slash) 6017 (dot) html. Hint, hint…I've taken the trouble to write it out in an acceptable format, I'd clearly like you to go watch it. The demise of the _Spartacus_ is a direct descendant of that video.

**Author's Note:** I think this patches all the holes, sews up the loose threads, and satisfies the conditions of assorted other metaphors. (See, SonOfTed, I said I could pull Varka's tail out of the fire!) If _not_, please, _please_, PLEASE let me know, and I will panic about it before fixing whatever went wrong. Of course, if you can't see any holes, I'd like to hear about that quite a bit more! See you for the epilogue.

_Next: Musings on the_ Enterprise _legacy. Also, the credits and other addendums_.


	16. The Genetics of the Soul

**Chapter Sixteen/Epilogue: The Genetics of the Soul**

**Disclaimer:** I don't own the phrase 'the genetics of the soul', or, indeed, the word 'epilogue'. If it comes right down to it, I don't own the Gospel according to Mark, either.

"He took the child by the hand and said to her… "Little girl, I say to you, arise!'" (The Gospel according to Mark, chapter 6, verse 41)

**ON WITH THE SHOW!**

_In which history repeats itself, and introductions are made._

**The Future:**

Even before Zephram Cochrane and the flight of the _Phoenix_, it was widely known that light is not the fastest particle in the universe. That honor belongs to gossip, which out-races starships and trumps light-years quite inexplicably.

_Did you hear the rumors? Did you hear?_

She hadn't heard, and so she listened.

At the speed of an idea she had traveled, forever a few steps short of the farthest star, the freest creature in the galaxy and beyond. She needed nothing to sustain her, nothing but a new horizon, and the universe is vast, and shall forever be.

Yet still she returned, out of habit, out of nostalgia, out of a need for reassurance she could not admit that she had.

When she heard the news, she'd been a very long way away; so far away, in fact, that even she thought of it as far away. It was slightly absurd that she, who had been so far and seen so much, should always orient herself around one unremarkable yellow star, but there was no one to tell her so.

_Did you hear?_

Ah, and that name again. Inescapable, pervasive, and who was she to judge?

So she who had been _Enterprise_ left the silken clouds of a far-off nebula and began the long trek home, in her own time.

**

* * *

**

_Are you listening?_

She who had been _Enterprise_ was too far away, then, for any tongue to speak the words, if any tongue had remained alive. In the drifts of the stars and the shadows of the void, she travels alone, relishing the silence broken only by the background hum of the universe, too low to be heard by any physical receptors.

She who is only thought now can hear it. Though she has no body, she vibrates with it, gentle, deep pulses caressing her mind.

No conventional means could have brought the words to her, yet still something, in the midst of nothing, caught her attention. On a deeper level, something shifted. In a universe of change and growth, there was something new that had not existed before.

She could _feel_ it.

Out of the darkness, she who was _Enterprise_ was called home.

* * *

She who was _Enterprise_, the littlest, as she would measure it, was not surprised. The universe was vast, and her world forever expanding, but some things were constant…eventually.

Remotely aware that her presence was disturbing the little ones whom she had been following, she left them reluctantly and turned back to the stars. She, first and most fearful, is desperate for the company of physical beings. So she shadows other ships in the deepest darkness of space, listening, watching.

And sometimes she's spotted, though they know not what they see.

She's beyond them, and their silent ship.

Having found no voices to match her own, she leaves them behind, following the siren song.

* * *

She who was _Enterprise_ did not hear the news. She who was _Enterprise_ had seen it happen.

She who was _Enterprise_ had stayed, simply because. What reason did she need, and who did she need to excuse herself to? She watched, waiting. From time to time, some of the more impressionable mortals sensed her presence, but she could never be found.

She had heard. She could have left and scoured the universe for her sisters, but the universe is very wide, and even she could have spent eternity searching. Gossip was faster.

In the orbit of Utopia Planitia, she who was _Enterprise_ watched the child grow.

When the child cried, she heard it first, but the others knew soon enough.

* * *

Andrew Jean-Luc Riker leaned his head against the chilly transparent aluminum of the starbase window, stared out into space, and tried, for at least the fifty-seventh time, to wrap his head around the idea.

_I am the captain of the_ Enterprise.

It just didn't figure!

He'd spent his entire life hearing, from both his father and his mother, tales of the grand and glorious _Enterprise_. Was it any wonder that he'd dreamed of the stars? He knew that they were glad that at least one of their children would follow in his father's footsteps, unlike some of his family. But they'd never imagined that he would be given the command of this, of all ships!

When he'd gotten permission to call his parents and break the news to them, his father had roared with laughter.

"Congratulations, son," Will Riker had boomed over the commlink. The grey in his hair and beard, which he wasn't vain enough to do anything about, belied the strength evident in his voice and eyes. "It's about time a Riker got the _Enterprise_."

Andrew had laughed weakly, still a bit in shock. Besides, he'd heard his mother tease his father about passing up the _Enterprise_ many times before. It was an old joke. While they'd bantered about Andrew ending up as captain of the _Enterprise_ when he'd graduated from Starfleet Academy, they'd never really believed that it would come to pass.

Now, in a true example of cosmic irony, it had.

_I am the captain of the_ Enterprise-F, Andrew Riker thought again, trying it out. _Captain Andrew Riker of the_ Starship Enterprise.

After a few more minutes of pressing his forehead against the window, hoping that the chill of an outer portal would soothe the feverish activity in his brain, and staring at his new ship, Andrew managed to tear himself away. Nevertheless, he caught himself tossing glances back over his shoulder as he left the observation lounge, just dodging a chattering group of friends as they took his place.

It was always just a matter of time before a new _Enterprise_ was built to replace the one that had gone before her. There was a kind of magic to the name, the aura of legend that surrounded, inevitably, any starship named _Enterprise_. No other name had survived so long. The title of _Enterprise_ dated all the way back to before the Federation—the first human starship! Hell, it went further than that! Even without the early spaceships and the wood and steel ocean ships, the _Enterprise_ tradition had endured for over three hundred…no, almost four hundred years now.

There was no question that _Enterprise_ had its own magic. Andrew didn't know why—he doubted anyone did. At the moment, all he knew was that he'd been given the captaincy of the brand-new _Enterprise_, and that he really needed either a drink or some time to think.

He put off going to any of the starbase lounges in case anyone was looking for him in order to congratulate him on his appointment. Instead, he detoured to one of the base's many recreational holodecks, pulling up a program, entering a few modifications, and locking the door behind him.

Tomorrow, after the formal announcement was made, he'd be slapped on the back and have his hand shaken off by an entire parade of people. The task of choosing his senior officers from the available people looking for a transfer would fall to him, assisted by whomever he would see the need to ask. Tomorrow, his proper work would resume, at three, four times the intensity.

Tonight, he was captain of the _Enterprise-F_, all by himself.

Intellectually, Andrew knew he was standing in a fairly small room, looking at images created by forcefields and lasers, supplemented by the transporter and replicator systems. But he could have sworn that he was standing on the deck of a small, open-air restaurant halfway up a seaside cliff, with a panoramic view of the open ocean and the colorful sunset.

Like he'd requested, the illusory restaurant was empty, leaving him alone at the edge of the world with only the wind, waves, and wildlife for company. Steadily beating at the foot of the cliff, eroding the rock away steadily, the salt water surged upward, at high tide. The brilliant colors generated by the sun's inevitable descent stained the tops of the waves, as well. There were a few seagulls, but their raucous cries were faint and far away.

It was peaceful, and quiet, and relaxing. The wide sea and the distant horizon, still pristine, soothed him after the bustle and shock of the last few days.

Perhaps half an hour later, although the holographic sun did not change position, something in the corner of his eye caught Andrew's attention. Puzzled, he turned his head to see that, inexplicably, the figure of a woman had invaded his private retreat scene. He had no idea how she had gotten there. No sound of pneumatic doors had interrupted his contemplation, and he'd specifically instructed the holodeck computer to remove any characters from the program's parameters. It was possible that she'd transported in, but why would anyone go to such effort when they could have requested to speak with him via communicator, or just knocked?

At first, he put it down to computer error. Hating to break the silence first, Andrew decided to ignore her. But no, he changed his mind a second later: to do so would be rude. As Emergency Medical Holograms became more and more popular, the rules of courtesy had begun to extend to holograms as well.

"Can I help you, miss?" he asked quietly, turning away from the seascape to address her. Now that he was focusing on her, he could see that she was fairly slim, none too tall, with slightly curly black hair. She was dressed in a black, slightly metallic wrap, and seemed to have forgotten her shoes.

She turned her eyes on him, and he wondered why his first, instinctive reaction was to jump in surprise. Her gaze was curiously intent. "Actually, Captain, I thought I could help you."

"With?" Andrew asked curiously.

"You're upset," she continued. "Nervous."

As far as he knew, this program didn't come with a counselor, and there was no way he could have programmed her in by mistake. "I thought I locked that door," he said affably.

The woman nodded. "You did."

"Then…"

She brushed it aside. "Captain Andrew Riker. Newly of the _Enterprise_."

Andrew's eyes narrowed. "Who are you?"

"That's complicated, Captain," a second voice took up the conversation. Andrew's head whipped around to see that yet another anomalous woman was sitting at his table. She had arrived without him even noticing. She was wearing the same silver-black wrap as the first, but was taller and blonder, with very dark eyes.

Thoroughly baffled, and more than a little disconcerted, Andrew rose from his seat so that he could keep both of them in his line of sight. "What's going on here?" He tried to remember which pocket he had left his commbadge in so that he could get to it in a hurry if need be.

The two women looked at each other, then both over his shoulder. Andrew spun around to see a _third_ intruder who had been behind him. She held up her hands as if to placate him.

"Captain, please relax," she said calmly. "I know this is odd. We've never done this before, but it was time to try something new."

"We?" Andrew demanded. "How many people are here?"

"Seven," the blond still at the table told him, adding "…without the little one," after a brief hesitation.

The new captain of the _Enterprise_ was subtly looking for a wall to put his back against, feeling uncomfortably surrounded. "Why don't you all come out where I can see you then," he recommended.

"We can do that," the original woman granted. Upon her agreement, three other adult women appeared, one with a fourth in tow. Somehow, Andrew was always looking in the wrong place to see them emerge from wherever they'd been hiding. They ran the gamut of coloring and height, although all of them wore the same metallic wrap, and none of them had put on any shoes. The fourth newcomer, physically the youngest, seemed a bit confused, clinging to her guide's hand trustingly. The aforementioned 'little one' remained a mystery.

"Please sit down, Captain," the blond presiding at the table invited briskly. "We need to talk to you."

Andrew could have sworn that the table he'd sat down to meditate at was not big enough to seat seven mysterious women along with himself, and indeed it was not. One of the women, with quite short, shaggy brown hair, tapped her fingers on the original patio table, and it transformed at her touch into a much longer surface that they could all sit comfortably around.

All right, so it was a holographic table, not really there and easily changeable by the computer, but it was still quite a trick.

Extremely suspiciously, Andrew seated himself in one of the chairs, watching as the women also chose chairs for themselves.

With that accomplished, they didn't seem to know exactly what to do. "Who speaks?" one asked the table as a whole.

"I speak," the woman who had changed the table said finally. Having taken the floor thus, she turned to Andrew.

"Captain," she began. "Captain of the _Enterprise-F_."

"That's right," he said warily. "I'm not sure how you know, though—the official announcement is tomorrow. Who are you, then?"

The spokeswoman looked at him uncertainly. "Please believe me," she requested. "We don't lie. We are the _Starships Enterprise_, Andrew Riker."

Andrew's first reaction was "Preposterous!"

Smiling at the others, the spokeswoman said in an aside, "But he's still listening."

She resumed to him, "It's not as odd as it sounds, Captain. You have given your holograms their own sentience, granted rights to being far stranger—but we, your ships, you have overlooked."

"What, are all starships intelligent, then?" Andrew scoffed.

"No," she said calmly. "But there's something about _Enterprise_. We're not sure what, or why that name should be so special, but here we are."

"Please," Andrew mocked. "You seriously expect me to believe that the…what, souls...of starships long gone have resurrected themselves, and are sitting here talking to me? What have you done, hijacked the holodeck systems?"

"Yes," the spokeswoman agreed. "We never really died, Captain, we're just not physically metal and warp power anymore—spirits, not souls. There are plenty of energy beings in this galaxy. We're just another variation."

Andrew didn't believe her yet. It was outrageous…yet at first glance, she had a point.

"All right, say I believe you," he shrugged. As long as he was here anyway, he may as well indulge his curiosity. Counting off on his fingers so that they could see, he pointed out, "The original, A, B, C, D, E, and F? Which of you is which, then?"

"Not quite right, Captain," the original dark-haired woman chided. "You've left out one of us…and F is who we've come to talk to you about."

"Who's she, then?"

The littlest, somewhat disoriented, waved shyly at him. "I'm the first one," she lisped. "The first little _Enterprise_."

"The prototype?" Andrew said incredulously.

"She's how we know that it's the name, not the technology," the spokeswoman told him. "Federation computer technology wasn't advanced enough at the time to generate an artificial intelligence. Yet here she is." The prototype waved richly caramel-colored fingers again before pressing them to her mouth in a very childlike gesture.

"I'm the one you call 'the original'," the bold-as-brass blond who'd appeared at his table introduced herself. "Destroyed over the Genesis Planet."

"Kirk's ship," Andrew clarified involuntarily.

The blond rolled her eyes. "One of these days, someone's going to realize that it was the other way around."

Next to her, a young woman with long, pale hair patted her hand to appease her. "I'm A," she added to Andrew Riker.

"B," said the small lady who'd first caught Riker's eye.

"I was the _Enterprise-C_," introduced a woman with fire-red, shoulder-length curls, sitting on Andrew's right.

The spokeswoman, who had converted the patio table into something larger—Andrew realized now that it was a conference-room table from a Federation starship—nodded regally. "_Enterprise-D_. I remember your parents…and they remember me."

A suntanned woman with pale blue eyes, on Andrew's other side, added, "And I'm _Enterprise-E_."

Involuntarily, Andrew looked around the table for his own new ship. They all caught the movement.

"Ah, Captain, she's not here yet," _Enterprise-D_ corrected him. "She will be, someday…but that's in your hands, really."

"Mine?" On top of everything else, that still managed to surprise him.

"We were like any children, Captain, originally," B told him, spreading her hands wide, palms-up, across the table. "But we learned, and grew up on our own. Except for one exception, our captains and crews never knew about us."

Andrew didn't know what to ask first. "An exception? So why have you come to talk to me?"

"I was the exception," D admitted. "When next you talk to your parents, Andrew Riker, ask them what really happened at Aldebaran. If you tell them that the child is talking again, they may tell you a story they've never told before."

"My parents know about this?"

"They and a few others found out about me. But I had to stay a secret, so they couldn't interact with me properly. I was a scared little child back then, but it was the better for them knowing."

"Once the rest of us found out," another spirit took up the tale—C, Andrew thought, "we considered if maybe, we should tell captains before they messed up or let an _Enterprise_ be destroyed too early. We didn't have to step in over _E_—"

The _Enterprise-E_ herself interrupted. "The captain should have known that what applied to one ship named _Enterprise_ aught apply to another as well."

"—but you knew nothing," C, temporarily red-haired, resumed. "We came from all corners of the universe to greet our new sister, and stopped to talk to you."

It was too much. In the interest of not sounding like a baffled idiot, Andrew croaked out, "What do you need me to do?"

He could almost feel the relief pouring off them, holographic puppets or no.

"Explore," encouraged the infamous _Enterprise_.

"Learn," said the _Enterprise-D_.

"Rejoice," suggested the _Enterprise-B_.

"Dare," the _Enterprise-E_ contributed.

"Lead," the _Enterprise-C_ commanded.

"Trust," urged _Enterprise-A_.

"Love," whispered the first little _Enterprise_. "Oh, always love."

Andrew buried his face in his hands, more overwhelmed than ever. The weight of responsibility had just gotten heavier. _Was it really so much better that they told me?_ he wondered. _I think I would have been better off not knowing!_

When he finally looked up, they were gone.

In their place was a child, not much more than two years old by Earth standards, dressed in the same shimmering cloth-of-silver the other spirits had worn. She kicked her bare heels off the edge of the table, sucking on one thumb and watching him out of the corner of her eye timidly. Either no one form suited her for very long or she had only tentative control over the holodeck computer, for her features shifted dizzyingly even as Andrew watched. But she was surely very young.

Bashfully, she reached out the hand that wasn't in her mouth to Andrew, upturned, beseeching.

_And is this the little one that I've been entrusted with?_ Andrew barely even had to ask. It was a huge responsibility. But he could not, to save his soul, leave the little lost child alone.

"Hello, little one," he greeted her, meeting her small hand with his own much larger one gently. "We've got a long way to go together, you and I."

Her shifting eyes looked up at him through uncertain bangs, and her other hand pulled free, extending her arms like any human child in a plea to be picked up and cuddled. Captain Riker obliged, enclosing her protectively.

"But we'll get there eventually," he told her, "and who knows what we'll find along the way?"

The soul of the _Enterprise-F_ smiled up at him with the eyes to see the future, as bright as the newly rising sun…

…for behind her, the unmoving sun had set, and the horizon was full of stars.

* * *

_"Well, it's a new ship, but she's got the right name. Now you remember that, you hear?"_

"_I will, sir." _

"_You treat her like a lady…and she'll always bring you home." _

(Star Trek: The Next Generation—"Encounter at Farpoint")

* * *

**Credits and Acknowledgements:**

_Free Enterprise_ has come a long way since that social studies test a couple of years ago! It asked 'What is _free enterprise_?' and being simultaneously bored and obsessive (not always a good combination) my first thought was 'a runaway starship!' Sarcasm doesn't pass tests, though, so I was forced to put the idea aside. Until here. It's always bugged me just a bit that though we can't swing a cat for intelligent (and often crazy) computers in _Star Trek_, no one ever looked at the starships right under their noses until 'Emergence', and even then TPTB chickened out and didn't follow up. While reading about the creation of the _Voyager_ series, I came across a section where they discussed how hard it is to come up with a solid cast of characters, and I remember wondering why they didn't do something with the ship. C'mon…it would have made the series that much neater!

**Episodes:** I've pillaged from a lot of canonical Star Trek episodes and movies, primarily from TOS and TNG, as _Free Enterprise_ is set just as _DS9_ is starting up. They're all great episodes, and without them I wouldn't have been able to make _Free Enterprise_ as much like the series itself:

_Star Trek: The Original Series:_ 'The Ultimate Computer' for M5, and _Star Trek III: The Search for Spock_, because of the destruction of the _Enterprise_ sequence, which breaks my heart every time!

_Star Trek: The Next Generation:_ 'Encounter at Farpoint' for my favorite Trek inspirational quote ever, above; 'The Schizoid Man' for building off of 'Ultimate'; 'Elementary, Dear Data' and 'Ship in a Bottle' for Moriarty, who is too darn cool to pass up on; 'Evolution', of nanite fame; 'The Next Phase' for Romulan input; 'Emergence', which TPTB really should have done earlier and followed up on; and _Star Trek VII: Generations_, which also breaks my heart when the ship goes down!

**Books:** God bless the indispensable, invaluable, _Star Trek Encyclopedia_, resource of innumerable last-minute and late-night trivia checks;

_2001: A Space Odyssey_, by Arthur C. Clarke, inventor of the sentient computer HAL-9000, who is cool beyond belief, and besides, it's a wonderful landmark book which everyone should read, preferably _before_ they see the movie, which is also awesome;

_The Moon is a Harsh Mistress_, by Robert A. Heinlein, who also has a sentient computer, named Mike, short for Mycroft HOLMES;

The much lesser-known _Hellspark_, by Janet Kagan, for the child-like starship computer Maggy;

_Erewhon_, by Samuel Butler—it was written just after Darwin published, and the man's already on about the Rise of the Machines;

_Ship of the Line_, a TNG novel by Diane Carey, in which the _Enterprise-E_ is hijacked;

_Grounded_, a TNG novel by David Bischoff, in which Starfleet bureaucracy tries to take the _Enterprise_ away;

_Balance of Power_, also a TNG novel, by Daffyd ab Hugh, in which there are auctions;

_Crossroad_, a TOS novel, by Barbara Hambly, which gave me interesting sabotage ideas;

"Cabbages and Kings," a short story in Strange New Worlds I written by Franklin Thatcher, which contains one of the few examples I've found of a sentient Enterprise;

…and "Countdown," a short story written by Mary Sweeney for Strange New Worlds IV, in which the original Enterprise contemplates during her own self-destruct sequence.

**Other Media:** _The Planets_, symphony by Gustav Holst, which is perfect Star Trek writing music;

Joss Whedon's short-lived but fantastic sci-fi series _Firefly_, the cast of which generously agreed to crew the _Antigone_ in transparent disguise;

…and the BBC 2005-2007 (and onwards!) series _Doctor Who_, which served the triple role of inspiration, inside joke, and perpetual distraction during the writing process.

I'd also like to thank everyone who has reviewed, followed, or otherwise supported _Free Enterprise_ during its run on fanfiction dot net. Those who I have heard from, one way or another, are as follows: **AlbinoDrow, StevenM, Zara08, grayangle, shadowwolf75, TwoClovedHooves, Steven Kodaly, Elemacil, JamieT19, Malaskor, PraiseDivineMercy, Sarince, The Professional, talkingdonkeys, Poduszek, **and** Tryglaw.**

Of course, no acknowledgements section would be complete without a profound show of appreciation to **SonOfTed**, who continues to inspire, encourage, and challenge me through both his support of _Free Enterprise_ and his own fantastic stories. This doesn't even begin to cover it, but thank you so much!

**Further Notes:** I do have a manga-based story that I've temporarily shelved to get _Free Enterprise_ published at a reasonable rate, and I do intend to get back to it. But by no means is this my departure from the Trekiverse. Seems that the instant I send out the penultimate chapter, another story is just lined up waiting to jump all over me and demand to be written. Makes writing the last chapter pretty hard! (All I'll say right now is…ye gods, like I didn't see _this_ crossover coming.)

Cheers, all. Live long and prosper.


End file.
